Blueberry Crumble
July 29, 2009
If you like this recipe, I am sure you will love these related recipes!
Baby when you call me, you can call me Sal.
When I was young, I had the good fortune of living up the hill from a blueberry patch that belonged to a place called March Farms. Just passed the farm was a pond called Long Meadow, where my family went from morning until evening in the days when school was out.
Sometimes we headed down the road to March Farms for a basket of all-you-can-pick blueberries and one or two of Mrs. March’ s giant peanut butter cookies. It is still a spectacular lunch.
I go back to the farm every summer and haul away as many bags of berries as I can afford. At $2 a pound, it’ s a pretty good deal—especially since a few end up digested before the loot gets weighed. As someone who has spent nearly $5 for a mini-box at the grocery store, $2 per pound feels like hitting the blueberry jackpot. So of course, every summer I end up with a surfeit of them. And every summer they’ re gone within a week.
From baking to eating, it’ s fleeting.
If you’ re looking to put away a huge amount of fruit in a very short time, I suggest a crumble. I think I ate this more quickly than I baked it. My sister and I, after a few glasses of wine, polished off two-thirds of the thing after dinner. The rest went down for breakfast in the morning.
A crumble goes well with Mascarpone cheese, or a dollop of vanilla ice cream. It’ s a bit juicy, which is nice, because the liquid can be spooned over your dairy of choice and turned into a warm coulis. The crumble is worthy of thirds, and as I jabbed a bit extra off the top while serving myself yet-another-piece, I had a vision of myself at 5 years old, pilfering dots off the top of my Grandmother’ s Entenmann’ s Crumb Coffee Cake while she was up from the table, serving herself tea.
But this is so much better than Entenmann’ s. The buttery, crunchy topping (which tastes caramelized because of the baked brown sugar) goes perfectly with the slightly tart blueberries that melt and bubble out from the sides. Nothing cloyingly sweet or overwhelmingly heavy here.
If you find yourself with an extra 6 cups of berries to spare—quite an embarrassment of riches—make this. Make this! In under an hour you’ll have astonishingly beautiful, delicious results. It’ s a great way to pay homage to the fleeting pulchritude and flavor of summer’ s favorite fruit, which is of course, your favorite summer fruit, whatever that may be.*
Blueberry Crumble
Serves 6
6 c blueberries (or any summer fruit, cut finely)
¾ c flour plus 1 tbsp
½ c packed brown sugar
¼ c granulated white sugar
4 tbsp butter, cold, chopped into small pieces.
1 tsp cinnamonPreheat the oven to 350.
Wash and thoroughly dry the blueberries, then toss with 1 tbsp flour and ¼ c white sugar. Transfer to a pie pan.
In a medium sized bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. Add the butter with your fingers until small crumbles form throughout.
Distribute the mixture evenly on top of the blueberries, starting at the center. I like to leave a little room on the edges for the blueberries to poke through.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the top is quite brown and the blueberries have bubbled.
* Some fruits may not be as juicy as berries, and you may sacrifice your coulis…
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