How to Make Raspberry Crumble

 I had the benefit of taking a rare Tuesday off work to get in some personal time at home which equated to sleeping in late, having an extra cup of coffee, and spending some quality time with the youngest. Another side benefit to being home today was making dessert courtesy of having three cups of raspberries in the freezer from our generous berry crop from the summer. We actually reaped way more than three cups during the growing season, though my children picked the bushes clean several times over, thus most berries never made it to kitchen or freezer. A lot of neighbors consider the raspberries a nuisance as if they are weeds; I actually get a kick out of watching my children raid the bushes like birds. They actually reap a great refreshing snack while they help me pick vegetables and weed the remainder of the garden, so no complaints here. Raspberries are so easy to grow (more so than some of their berry counterparts such as strawberries and blueberries). If anything, I will encourage a greater growing area next year. Hopefully my two blackberry plants will get going in 2013.

Anyhow, I prepared a blueberry pear crisp (which was posted on this blog) a few months back, so I decided to do something similar. Instead of making a crisp, I baked a crumble. A crumble is layer of fruit between two crusts consisting of shortening, flour, sugar, and oats. If you don’t use oats, but add more flour, then you have what is considered a “crunch”. I decided to go with a crumble which made the dessert softer and little healthier since I substituted using oats instead of more flour. Here is my recipe. As with any crumble, crisp, or crunch using tart berries, I highly recommend serving a la mode.

Raspberry Crumble

3 cups raspberries

1 cup rolled oats

½ cup all purpose flour

1 cup brown sugar

½ cup granulated white sugar

8 tbsp (1 stick) butter, cold (not softened)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Arrange oven rack to be located in middle of oven.

3. In a large bowl combine dry ingredients of oats, flour, and brown sugar

4. Using pastry knife or two knives, work cold butter into dry mixture until crumbles form.

5. Take half of crumble mixture and line bottom of 8 inch by 8 inch pan.

6. Spread raspberries over top of crumble crust. Dust with white sugar.

7. Take remaining crumble topping from bowl and sprinkle evenly over top of raspberries.

8. Bake crumble for one hour.

9. Remove from oven and cool for about twenty minutes before serving.