Fruit Crumble - Cooking on the Fly

It has been so cold around here lately that I wanted something warm and yummy to combat the winter depression that pounds me in February, so I wanted the taste of Spring. This is a thrown together recipe based on an understanding of baking fruit pies. It is not meant to be elegant, just a good, solid dessert on a cold day.

This is a quick dessert so I want to keep it simple, no rolled crusts and no complicated method. I wanted a start to finish recipe of about 35 minutes with would mostly be baking time. So I decided that the ingredients would be fruit, flour, spices, lemon juice, sugar, and my granola.

Personally, I like frozen fruit for baking because fresh fruit was picked so long before it was ripe for shipping that it never has any taste. Frozen fruit, on the other hand, is picked much closer to ripe and flash frozen resulting in fruit that has flavor.

On a personal rant, I miss the old days of fruit having seasons. I used to be able to get ripe, juicy, tasty plums a couple of weeks a year and I loved them. I could eat them by the bucket, especially since I hadn't had them in a year. I ate and ate them and by the time the season was over I was tired of plums. Now I can get, but don't, hard, tasteless purple lumps of sour unpleasantness. I hate them. The good plums are now turned into prunes because they are too delicate to ship across the hemispheres.

Fruit, lemon juice, flour, spices, and sugar all mixed together

Since this is a quick fruit dessert that would not have a long oven bake to soften the fruit and release those luxurious juices, I thought I would microwave the fruit to help this process. I measured the fruit using the Pyrex ramekins that this dessert would be baked and served in and put it into a microwave to soften (sorry no pictures). I started out with six minutes (3 servings of fruit) but ultimately added 2 more minutes to get to the texture that I wanted.

When the fruit came out of the microwave I added sugar to sweeten it, flour to thicken the juices during the baking, spices to enhance the flavor and cooking smell, and lemon juice to brighten the sweetness. I mixed all of that with a spatula and put it into the ramekins for baking.

The fruit mixture topped with granola

Once the fruit was in the ramekins and ready for baking I added a bit of granola to the top and popped it into the oven for 25 minutes. The granola was cooked. The fruit was cooked. I only needed enough time to let the flour begin to thicken the juices. Remember I wanted a fast dessert not a production.

Baked and topped with whipped cream

The final product was as good as I had hoped. It met all of the requirements and exceeded expectations. It has the added advantage that I can be made up as individual servings so there is no temptation to sneak the leftovers.

Adam's Quick Fruit Crumble

3/4 cup of your favorite mix of frozen fruit

1 TBS flour

1 TBS sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 cup of granola

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place rack in middle position.

2. Microwave the fruit until fork tender and the juices are released. For a single serving I would start at 3 minutes. I found 3 servings needed about 8 minutes in my microwave. Times will vary.

3. Mix sugar and flour together in a separate bowl before adding to fruit mixture. Mix well but be careful not to break the cooked fruit into a mush.

4. Add granola to the top and bake until juices bubble up around the edges, about 25 minutes.

The nutrition facts do not include the whipped cream

Cook for Enjoyment. Eat for Health.