Crisps and Crumbles and Cobblers, Oh My!

So you want to incorporate more local, seasonal foods into your diet but plain berries and stone fruits in a bowl just won't cut it? Try making a delicious dessert and before you get confused about all those crazy fruit dessert terms, here's a crash course:

Cobbler - sweetened fruit with a baked biscuit crust either dropped in pieces or spread over the whole surface

Pandowdy - the same idea as a cobbler except midway through baking the crust or biscuit pieces are broken up and pushed into the saucy fruit layer

Grunt, or slump - a steamed fruit dish typically made on the stove top with a dumpling-like pudding incorporated on top

Buckle - a sweet cake with the fruit incorporated right into the batter, topped with a strusel

Crisp - sweet fruit on bottom with a "crumble" topping usually made of butter, flour and/or oats and sometimes nuts, differs from a crumble in that the topping is crunchy; in the UK a crisp is called a crumble

Bird's nest pudding - usually made with cored and sugared apples, surrounded by a crust (like a nest)

Betty, or brown betty - fruit between layers of buttered crumbs; it's a brown betty if you use brown sugar; similar to the French charlotte

Clafouti - fruit is topped with a pudding and then baked

Sonker - deep dish version of a cobbler; popular only in the Carolinas

And lastly, in case you're interested, the difference between a tart and a torte is that a tart is a miniature pie with no topping, baked with a classic pastry crust; a torte often has little to no flour in its crust with more of a ground nut or breadcrump based dough rolled to coat the bottom.

So now you know!

Rhubarb Crumble

Wow, short of the fiddlehead pasta I've been really slack on posting seasonal recipes! This was brought to my attention with the new books I've been reading:

and

So in all my guilt I've decided to post a recipe. Really after this one I'm not that far behind. I don't have anything brilliant to show you about asparagus (just cook it lightly and eat - can't get any better) so with fiddleheads, asparagus & rhubarb down I'm on to June which of course brings to mind strawberries so I'll see what I can do about that one soon! Roots are also available right now but because they're so easily stored I say enjoy them all year round.

Here's my favourite rhubarb crumble.

Preheat the oven to 350.
In a large bowl combine 3 cups chopped rhubarb, 2 medium apples chopped, 1 egg and 1/2 cup maple syrup. Sprinkle in a few nice warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Pour into a large baking dish.
In that same bowl (don't bother cleaning it) combine 1 cup flour (I've tried this recipe with 3/4 cup rice flour and 1/4 cup tapioca starch - it was great), 1/2 cup sucanat or brown sugar and a pinch of sea salt. Then cut in 1/2 cup cold butter or Earth Balance.
Crumble this mixture over the fruit and bake for 45 - 55 minutes.



There's no picture. We ate it all right away. Every time.