I just have to say…I LOVE berry crumbles! They have to be one of the easiest desserts to make…Whip together a few ingredients, and voila! Today I used fresh from the farm berries but even in winter, crumbles taste great with frozen berries.
To try something different though, I added a pie crust which soaked up some of the juices and was still flaky and delightful. And the ginger in this recipe adds a spicy kick for a little something more. Hmmm…life is good!
Recipe Cost
Since most of the ingredients are on stock in my pantry, I only added the price of berries and a pie crust to come up with a total of $8 for this amazingly delish dessert. To buy a dessert this yummy at your local bakery, you’d spend close to $20. Quite the savings to make at home!
Ingredients
For the Pie Crust:
Knock yourself out making one from Grandma’s scratch recipe, or do as I do and buy refrigerated dough. One of these days, I’m going to figure out how to make a crust but for the moment, I am pretty intimidated on that front and blame it on my baking roller. If you are just as intimidated with the daunting task of dough rolling, make sure to buy refrigerated not frozen pie crusts. Frozen pie crusts in those tin pans produce mushy crust; whereas a refrigerated one placed in your glass pie plate will produce a flaky and delectable crust.
For the Filling:
4 cups fresh blackberries and/or blueberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons lemon juice (~1/2 of a lemon)
1/2 Tbsp fresh minced ginger or 1 1/2 tsp grated ginger
1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh mint
For the Crumble:
1 cup flour
3/4 cup old fashioned oats
1/4 cup coarsely chopped hard nuts (almonds, walnuts, hazelnut, etc.)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
4 ounces butter, at room temperature
dash of kosher salt
For the crust ~ Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place pie crust in a glass pie plate and add dry beans to the top for a weight. Blind bake the pie crust for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, remove beans or dry weights and allow to cool.
Don’t do like me and forget to add the weights/dry beans…the middle will puff up and the sides collapse into the middle!
For the filling ~ In a large, non-reactive bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, lemon juice, ginger, and mint. Next, gently mix in the berries and allow to sit for at least 10 minutes.
Pour into crust once crumble topping is made.
The berries took on a shiny sheen all by themselves. No matter the lighting, the photo looked like steam was rising.
For the crumble ~ In a mixing bowl, stir together the dry ingredients and then whisk in the butter.
You can also use a fork or your fingers. Basically, as the name implies, you just want the mixture to be crumbly looking. Place crumble mixture on top of berries in pie dish.
Bake in preheated oven for approximately 40 minutes, until golden brown.
ENJOY!!!
XoXo, Jess
Ingredients
For the Pie Crust:
9″ refrigerated pie crust
For the Filling:
4 cups fresh blackberries and/or blueberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons lemon juice (~1/2 of a lemon)
1/2 Tbsp fresh minced ginger or 1 1/2 tsp grated ginger
1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh mint
For the Crumble:
1 cup flour
3/4 cup old fashioned oats
1/4 cup coarsely chopped hard nuts (almonds, walnuts, hazelnut, etc.)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
4 ounces butter, at room temperature
dash of kosher salt
For the crust ~ Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place pie crust in a glass pie plate and add dry beans to
the top for a weight. Blind bake the pie crust for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, remove beans or dry
weights and allow to cool.
For the filling ~ In a large, non-reactive bowl, gently mix together the sugar, flour, lemon juice, ginger,
and mint. Gently mix in the berries and allow to sit for at least 10 minutes. Pour into crust once crumble
topping is made.
For the crumble ~ In a mixing bowl, stir together the dry ingredients and then whisk in the butter. Y ou
can also use a fork or your fingers. Basically , as the name implies, you just want the mixture to be crumbly
looking. Place crumble mixture on top of berries in pie dish.
Bake in preheated oven for approximately 40 minutes, until golden brown.
If you have a food processor, pie crusts are easy to do. I took me a while to get the courage up too. I like your crumb. pie recipe. I am going to give it a try.
Thanks for the encouragement on the pie crust. Do you have a good recipe to share? I hope you like the pie crumble, we are having for breakfast! Jessica
I just finished copying your recipe for the crumble pie topping on a recipe card. I keep my recipes on pretty little cards that I find at a local hobby shop. I have always had a recipe box full of cards. If you are looking for a pie crust recipes I have many. I like the shortening one with cold water. You can find many good ones by just googling. Using a food processor makes it easy and fool proof.
I like to put the flour in first with the salt and give it a pulse to mix the salt in good. Then I put the shortening or cold butter in next. Give it a few pulses until it looks like coarse sand. Then you dribble in the cold water through the shoot and pulse the processor as you add the water. When it comes together in a ball you are done. By pulsing you don’t over process the dough.
I roll my dough out on wax paper. I dampen the surface that I am working on using a wet clean cloth that has been rung out. Then I smooth the wax paper down. I take a ball of dough and pat it down until it is flat and add a piece of wax paper on top. Then I roll it out. If you are making a 2 crust pie keep the dough for the top in the processor with the lid on so it won’t dry out. Sometimes I have to lift the top paper up while I am rolling because it gets wrinkled a little. Lay it back down and smooth it out and finish rolling. Peel the top paper off and lift up the bottom paper to transfere the rolled dough to the pie plate and flip it over right into the plate. Easy as pie.
With some pratice you will learn the right size of crumb when processing shortening or butter that is ready to add water. You will also learn when it is just about ready to ball up as you add water so you can make shorter pulses. Throwing together a pie will be second nature to you after a few tries.
I think you deserve an award for having the courage to show your mistake in prebaking your pie shell. I am nominating you for the Illuminating Blogger Award. It is cute little award from Food Stories. You don’t have to except, to find out more about the award go to http://foodstoriesblog.com/food-stories-award/
and pick up your award. It is a great way to discover new food blogs and make new freinds. Either way it is a fun site to explore and the person who gives the awards is a very interesting lady. Just tell them that trkingmomoe (Janet) nominated you.
Thanks so much Janet for the nomination! I definitely accept and will blog about it tomorrow. Thanks again! And thanks for the tips on the crust making. I’ll give it a go and let you know how it turns out.
Have a great day! Jessica