I just can’t seem to get enough of those tasty Florida blueberries!  It’s probably because my subconscious keeps telling me that they’ll be gone soon.  I  plop them on cereal and in yogurt.  I mix them into salads.  I make ice cream, pies and shortcake.  I bake muffins, bars and cakes with them.  And, I bake them into luscious, fruity, juicy crisps, like this one.

Cobblers, crisps and crumbles – I can never get them straight!   My understanding is that a crisp is a baked fruit dessert that is topped with a crunchy, crumbly topping made from sugar, flour, butter and often rolled oats and nuts. That sounds good to me, so I’m calling it a crisp.  Whatever you call it, it’s one of the simplest, yet most delicious ways to use succulent seasonal fruits. 

For this crisp, I used lots of tender, plump, fresh blueberries,  and a few sweet, juicy mangoes that I had lying around as well. To jazz things up a bit, I also added some fresh orange zest and a handful of crystallized ginger.    The topping contains rolled oats, sliced almonds and turbinado sugar for a little extra crunch. Part of the beauty of a recipe like this is that you can use whatever kinds of fruit that strike your fancy. Peaches, nectarine and plums all make great crisps, as do apples and pears. The possibilities are endless!

There are two components to this dish – the fruit filling and the topping.  Make the topping first and let it chill a while in the fridge to get nice and clumpy.  Then get your fruit ready.

Dump your fruit into a baking dish.  I made sure to use one that has at least two-inch sides so that there wouldn’t be any unfortunate fruit accidents in my oven.  I’m leaving for BlogHer Food in two days.  I don’t want to worry about cleaning no stinkin’ oven!

Take your topping out of the fridge and smush your fingers around in it to break it into small clumps.  Go ahead.  It’s fun!  Then, sprinkle it evenly on top of the fruit.

Pop it in the oven and bake until the topping is nice and golden – just like this.

WOWZA!

Then, dig right in.

Enjoy!

In an attempt to make November a little less frazzled for us, our fearless leaders at TWD are allowing us to present our weekly recipes out of order.  This works for me as this week’s recipe is Dorie’s Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake.  Not only is this cake rather labor-intensive to make, but it calls for chestnuts, which I detest.  I suppose I could have used a different kind of nut, but frankly, I just didn’t have the energy this week.  My shoulder is still frozen from making all those macarons and fillings for the DB challenge last week, and I couldn’t bear the thought of any more mixing and stirring, for a while at least!  Instead, I decided to make Dorie’s more shoulder-friendly Cran-Apple Crisps. 

These crisps were a snap to put together and are absolutely delicious!  The recipe is also quite forgiving.  I made them last night at around 10:00 pm, which because of the time change here, was 11:00 on my body clock.  In my fatigue-induced stupor, I made several errors.  First of all, instead of adding cinnamon to the crisp topping, I accidentally added ground cardamom.  To my foggy eyes, both spice jars looked the same.   I also forgot to butter the ramekins before filling them.   Then, I baked them at 350 degrees F. instead of 375, as the recipe directed.  After about thirty minutes, I realized what I had done and turned up the heat in my oven.  I was certain that I was going to end up with a sticky, burnt mess, but I didn’t.  Despite all my goofs, the crisps turned out just fine.  The topping was crunchy and golden and the filling was the perfect balance of sweet-tart  fruitiness with a thick, syrupy texture.

For my crisps, I used Honeycrisp and Fuji apples, fresh cranberries and plump, sweet, dried Bing cherries.  I had never baked with fresh cranberries before and I was a bit skeptical.  I needn’t have worried.  While the cranberries were quite tart, the tartness was nicely offset by the sweetness of the apples and cherries.  For not a whole lot of work, the payoff was great.  This really is a lovely dessert that would certainly be worthy of a place at any holiday table!

My thanks go out to Em of The Repressed Pastry Chef for choosing this recipe. She will eventually have the recipe posted on her site.  But, if you can’t wait to try these Cran-Apple Crisps, you can also find the recipe in Baking: From My Home to Yours on page 422.