Berrylicious Dessert

It normally irks me when people take liberties with the word "berry," but I made an exception here because it really is the perfect way to describe one of my favorite--and easiest to prepare--summer desserts: the berry crumble.  You can find recipes like this anywhere, or just make one up yourself, which is basically what I did.  Though, to be fair, I borrowed some inspiration from Vegetarian Times magazine (yes, they even do desserts!), The Joy of Cooking, and my mom of course.

If you've never made a crumble, you should! Basically you throw together your favorite assortment of fruit, sprinkle it with a crumb mixture, and bake.  No fancy equipment or technique necessary.  In fact, you can be downright sloppy about it because it's pretty hard to mess up; and because there's no such thing as a perfect-looking crumble.

In this case, I used some strawberries and blueberries that Gus's mom picked up for us at a farm stand.  I'm not sure if there's anything better than fresh, ripe, in-season local produce.  It reminds you of what fruit is at its essence--and of what you're missing out on during the rest of the year.  Sure, I can get big, firm, red--sometimes, even sweet--strawberries at my supermarket, but it's not until I walk past the stands at the Union Square farmer's market that I remember that strawberries have a very strong, sweet scent.  And the taste just doesn't compare.  Anyway, I digress, back to the crumble.  Here are my berries:

Now the next step is sort of optional, but I threw in a little cornstarch to make sure it wasn't terribly drippy.  If I had some lemon juice, I would've squirt some in too.

And now for the most important part: the crumb topping.  This is what makes it, folks. I used The Joy of Cooking's recipe for a basic streusal topping (1/3 C sugar,  2 tbsp flour, 2 tbsp butter) and added 1/2 C quick cooking oats.  Many of the crumble toppings I found online use brown sugar and more flour and butter...which probably makes more sense in retrospect.  But I guess it all depends on how much crumb topping you want in proportion to your berries.  I was using a little bread pan so this was perfect.

Then you just bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes (or until it's all nice and bubbly) and you're done! Mine did come out a little soupy, which I didn't mind because I had planned on eating it with vanilla ice cream. 

The wonderful thing about summer berries is that they're great as they are; no need to dip in powdered sugar or chocolate.  But their incredible ripe flavor really comes through in recipes like this, which offers you the satisfaction of baking without all the fuss.