The Big Question

Question: Do you know what this All-American dessert pictured below is called?

1. Brown Betty — a baked pudding made of layers of spiced and sugared fruit and buttered bread crumbs.

2. Clafoutis — a French cobbler, with fruit (usually cherries) on the bottom, custard, and a rough batter crust baked on top.
3. Cobbler — a spoon pie (more like a fruit stew with dumplings), in which biscuit dough is dropped onto the fruit before baking. The consensus is that the dish got its name because the lumps of cooked dough resembled cobblestones.
4. Crisp —A crisp is exactly like a crumble, except there are no oats in the streusel. That makes the crisp topping more like sweet, buttery, crumbled pie crust.
5. Crumble —A crumble is a baked dish of fresh fruit (apples, berries, plums, etc.) that is topped with an oat-based streusel. 

6. A grunt and a slump are exactly the same thing. Grunts and slumps are just like cobblers, only instead of being baked in the oven, they are cooked covered, entirely on the stove-top (or camping fire, or whatever). This steams the biscuits on top of the fruit, rather than baking them. This dish earned the name "grunt" because that's the noise that the hot, bubbly fruit makes as it "grunts" up around the biscuit dough. This dish earned its other name, "slump," because that is what it does when you try to put it on a plate.
7. Pandowdy — a spoon pie, with fruit on the bottom and a rolled crust on top, which is broken up to allow the juices to come through. 8. A buckle layers a more traditional, cakey batter underneath the fruit. As the dessert cooks, the cake rises around the fruit, which tries its best to sink to the bottom, causing the whole thing to buckle inward.

Big Question answer: # 5 a Crumble

Cook's Notes: There's nothing more quintessentially American than a fruit crumble or crisp. The sweet and succulent combination of blueberries and peaches complements each other in this dish. Add ice cream and transport to summer heaven. For easier removal of peach skins, place the peaches in boiling water for 30 seconds, remove them with a slotted spoon, and then run the peaches under cold water. Remove skins. Just in case you might wonder, that is not a napkin the crumble is served on, but a plate with a flag design. 😁

Ingredients:
For the Filling:

• 7 cups sliced peaches (about 7 large peaches)
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar 
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch 
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon Saigon cinnamon or 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon  vanilla extract 
• Optional 2 tablespoons Peach Schnapps
• 1-1/2 cups blueberries

For the Topping:

• 2/3 cup old-fashioned oats
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar 
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1 teaspoon ground Saigon cinnamon 
• 5 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into pieces 
• 1 cup chopped Blue Diamond Honey Roasted Cinnamon Almonds or 1 cup crushed almonds mixed with 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• Optional ice cream for serving 

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350° and spray a 9 x 9-inch baking dish or a 2 qt. baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.
• In a separate large bowl, combine the oats, brown sugar, flour, salt, and cinnamon. Stir until well combined, breaking down the brown sugar clumps. Add the butter pieces and mix in with your hands until you have a crumbly mixture. A food processor can be used for this step, pulsing butter pieces in. Stir in chopped almonds. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
• In a large bowl, combine the sliced peaches with the flour, sugar, cornstarch, peach schnapps (if using), lemon zest, and vanilla. Gently mix and let sit for 10 minutes. 
• Gently stir blueberries into the peach mixture and use a slotted spoon to place the filling in the baking dish. 
• Recrumble the refrigerated topping and evenly sprinkle the oat topping over the peaches and blueberry filling. 
• Bake at 350°F for 25 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown and the crumble is bubbling. Remove from the oven, place on a wire rack, and cool for 10 minutes before serving.