Ingredient: old fashioned oatmeal

Spiced Upside Down Peach Crisp

Fruit crisp is a classic dessert that has been around for centuries. The first known recipe was published in an 1828 cookbook. The recipe used frozen fruit instead of fresh and while fresh fruit is often used in baking, frozen fruit is a great alternative. 

Fresh fruit always has such appeal. It brightens the fridge and counter with cheery colors and sweet scents. Frozen fruit allows for some flexibility by extending a typically short shelf life. Both have their place in the kitchen.

 Frozen fruit may not have the same crispness or texture as it’s fresh counterpart but there are some great benefits to using it.

  • It’s available all year round
  • You can use it straight from the freezer
  • Convenience – it’s already washed and ready to go
  • Frozen fruit is generally quick-frozen at its peak and as soon as it’s picked

This peach crisp is amazing! The frozen peaches are enhanced with fresh lemon juice and flavorings and the spiced oatmeal topping has toasted pecans to add a little crunch. Yum!

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 Spiced Upside Down Peach Crisp
Votes: 1
Rating: 5
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Course dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword spiced peach crisp
Servings
Ingredients
Fruit
Crisp Topping
Spiced Cream Topping
Course dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword spiced peach crisp
Servings
Ingredients
Fruit
Crisp Topping
Spiced Cream Topping
Votes: 1
Rating: 5
You:
Rate this recipe!
Instructions
Fruit
  1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Line & lightly grease a 9-inch spring form baking pan with foil.
  2. In a large bowl, combine thawed & drained peaches, lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, almond extract & salt. Set aside.
Crisp Topping
  1. In a large bowl, whisk together brown sugar, flour, oats, pecans & spices. Add butter & mix with a wooden spoon until topping is crumbly.
Assembly
  1. Into prepared baking dish pour peach mixture. Sprinkle the crisp topping evenly over the peaches. Bake for 40 - 45 minutes or until top is golden brown. Remove from oven & allow to cool. When cool enough to handle, remove outside ring from pan then flip crisp over on a serving plate & slice.
Spiced Cream Topping
  1. Add heavy cream to a chilled bowl & beat until stiff peaks are just about to form. Beat in vanilla, sugar & spices until peaks form.
  2. Serve crisp with spiced cream topping or vanilla ice cream if you would rather.
Recipe Notes
  • Since there are just two of us, I made only half of the recipe, that's why mine is quite thin in the picture. Still gave us 10 pieces!
  • I baked it long enough to really caramelize the peaches. Yum!

Mango Cobbler

When it comes to some of the most common baked fruit desserts, there are a number of concoctions that go by many names. All work with whatever fruit is in season (or available) and in any shape pan.

The question is, what makes a cobbler, crisp, crumble, Betty or buckle different? To start with, a cobbler is so named because the topping is made with dollops of biscuit dough, not a smooth sheet of dough like a pie. The irregular surface, once baked, resembles the surfaces of streets paved with rough cobbles.

A crisp has a topping made with a combination of oatmeal, flour, butter & sugar (sometimes nuts). This topping completely covers the fruit and is baked.

Crumbles are very similar to crisps, however, usually they do not contain oats.

A Betty, although similar to a crisp has no oatmeal in the topping which is layered throughout instead of solely on top of the dessert.

Last, but not least is the buckle, which consists of fruit and cake baked together with a streusel topping. As it bakes, the fruit and streusel topping make the cake ‘buckle’.

This mango cobbler is a delicious dessert and a nice alternative to peach or apple cobbler. Fresh mangoes are peeled and sliced or diced and then simmered with a thickened syrup mixture. If you don’t have fresh fruit, feel free to use frozen sliced or diced mangoes in the cobbler.

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 Mango Cobbler
Votes: 1
Rating: 5
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Rate this recipe!
Course dessert
Cuisine American, European
Keyword mango cobbler
Servings
Ingredients
Fruit
Cobbler
Course dessert
Cuisine American, European
Keyword mango cobbler
Servings
Ingredients
Fruit
Cobbler
Votes: 1
Rating: 5
You:
Rate this recipe!
Instructions
Fruit
  1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
  2. In a large, heavy saucepan, combine mango, sugar, butter, flour, cornstarch, vanilla & salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring regularly until bubbly & thickened. Place in a baking dish, set aside.
Cobbler
  1. In a bowl, whisk together flour, oatmeal, sugar baking powder, spices & salt. With finger tips, blend in butter until crumbly. Add milk, stirring only to combine.
  2. Drop large tablespoons of dough on top of warm fruit. Place into preheated oven & bake for 35-40 minutes, until the edges are bubbling & the top is golden brown.
  3. Serve warm as is or topped with ice cream.

Italian Plum Crisp

Italian prune plums or sometimes called Empress plums, are different from the traditional round red and black skinned plums we see in the grocery stores. Sporting a dusky purple skin and a tart, lemony green flesh, these European fruits are ripe for harvest by the end of August to the beginning of September. This particular plum is prized throughout Germany and plays a big role in the German kitchen. Although it has a bit of a sour taste, it is very versatile in making juice, jam, cakes, dumplings as well as Slivovitz — a famous Schnapps.

I remember my mother making these plums as a stewed fruit to be served with yeast dumplings ( see my blog on German Hefekloesse from Nov. 6/2016).

Now that the Italian plums have come into season, I’m taking this opportunity to bake some for our dessert today. Top them with a nice simple crumble mixture, bake and serve hot. Of course, what would they be without ice cream!


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Italian Plum Crisp

Votes: 4
Rating: 4.5
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Course Brunch, dessert
Cuisine American, European, German, Italian

Servings


Ingredients
Plums

Topping

Course Brunch, dessert
Cuisine American, European, German, Italian

Servings


Ingredients
Plums

Topping

Votes: 4
Rating: 4.5
You:
Rate this recipe!


Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 F.

  2. Place plum halves, cut-side up, in a baking dish & drizzle with lemon juice. In a small bowl, combine topping ingredients, working with fingers until crumbly. Pile topping mixture into 'pit' holes. Bake about 20-30 minutes until topping is golden brown & bubbling. Serve hot with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.


Recipe Notes