When I have a lot of fruit lying about, I make a crisp. It’s an efficient way to use up ripe fruit, and a perfect expression of the season’s ingredients. Not only that, it’s a great way to serve dessert to a crowd. Unfussy to prepare, the assembled crisp may be refrigerated up to 3 hours before baking. For a dinner party I’ll pop it in the oven when we sit down to eat the main course. Then it’s ready and piping hot when it’s time for dessert.
Feel free to combine several fruits in a crisp. I like to mix 2-3 types of fruit, choosing for a variety of colors and textures as well as a balance between sweetness and tartness in flavor. Pears are prominent at the farmer’s market now as well as late season plums and berries. For this crisp I combined softly sweet bosc pears with spiced plums and tart blueberries.
Pear Plum and Blueberry Crisp with Hazelnut Streusel
Serves 10-12
For the topping:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, chilled, cut in 1/2″ cubes
1/2 cup toasted, skinned and chopped hazelnuts
For the filling:
6 large Bosc pears, about 3 pounds, peeled cored, cut in 1″ chunks
6 plums, halved, each half quartered
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
zest from one lemon
1 pint blueberries
Prepare topping:
Mix flour, sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt together in a medium bowl. Add butter and rub in with fingers until topping resembles coarse meal. Mix in hazelnuts. (Topping may be prepared up to one day in advance. Refrigerate until use.)
Prepare filling:
Preheat oven to 375 F. (190 C.)
Combine all of the ingredients except the blueberries in a large bowl. Toss to combine. Spread in a rectangular baking dish. Scatter blueberries over the filling. Cover the filling evenly with the topping.
Bake until bubbly and golden brown on top, about 50 minutes. Remove and serve warm or at room temperature with vanilla or cinnamon ice cream.
You had me at hazelnut struesel. This looks and sounds like an amazing recipe!
Ooh! What a good combo of late summer fruit. I make crisp all the time but have never thought of making one with a hazlenut streusel, great idea!
Anything with hazelnuts has my vote. beautiful crisp!
Thank you, everyone, for your comments! The hazelnuts do indeed add a special flavor to the streusel.
Cool posts,cool man,cool life,all like them,thanks for giving so good ideas to us,hope to be better!
I used your crisp as inspiration for my Thanksgiving dessert, which, in spite of many options on the table, turned out to steal the show! Thanks for the beautiful pics and delicious ideas. Check out my version (with 4 types of berries and macadamia nuts… so good!): http://pennyforyourpots.blogspot.com/2010/12/oh-my-berry-pie-i-mean-crisp.html