I love a great summer dessert!
Let me begin by saying that I have never been good at following directions.
Everyone in my family can attest to this.
Luckily, I am pretty good at improvising. Most of the time.
I don’t get lost or turned around easily.
I can adjust.
Tim Gunn would love me.
(I make it work, people.)
This habit applies to my cooking as well.
See, I want to follow the recipe to the letter, I really do.
But I tend to just sort of jump in without really getting all my ducks in a row.
For instance.
On Monday I wanted to bake something using the canned peaches I brought back from Amish Country,
So I dug through my cookbooks till I found The Pioneer Woman Cooks recipe for a Peach Crisp.
Perfect.
I dove in.
First I made the crisp mixture.
But in my food processor instead of by hand. (Already, I have gone rogue.)
The ingredients were as follows:
1 stick of cold butter cut up
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar packed (I used dark brown sugar.)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Dash (oh more than a dash) of Nutmeg
1/4 salt (I used fine sea salt)
Next I cut up my peaches (6 peaches in all,)
And mixed them in a bowl with:
Zest and juice of one good size lemon (double the recipe suggestion)
2 tbsp of peach juice (my addition since I didn’t any pure maple syrup…Or regular syrup. Apparently we are syrup pour at the moment.)
Next, I poured the peach mixture into a butter-greased casserole dish.
But there was an issue (of course.)
My peaches where already cooked and P-Dubs were raw.
Which meant they did not cover up the bottom of my baking dish as they should have.
So I added a frozen berry mix I had in the freezer to round things out.
(At this point I am pretty sure Julia Child would have voted me off the island.)
((Who I am kidding? She would have kicked me out as soon as I went off book.))
(((And my apologies to Ree. I am sure her original recipe is truly yummy. I pinkie swear to attempt to make it properly someday.)
After I got the fruit settled in, I spread the crumble mixture evenly over the top.
Then I baked the whole thing at 350 degrees until it bubbled in the middle.
We ate it with vanilla ice cream.
I may have licked my bowl.
And the serving spoon.
And the pan.
As good as all the maple touches (from the original recipe) would have been, I think the berry addition made it a perfect summer treat.
At least that’s my story.
And I am sticking to it.
Peaches n berries are naturally friends and always good together. That dessert looks delicious.