Fresh Fruit Crumble

Yesterday was our Isaac’s twelfth birthday. When we asked what kind of cake he wanted to celebrate, he answered — as he has for as many birthdays as I can remember — “I don’t want a cake, I want a cobbler.”

And who can blame him? Sweet juicy berries, warm crumbly crust, topped with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream — it’s almost more than a body can resist.

This time around, we used blackberries. His birthday hits about the time they are ripe for picking, although time constraints didn’t allow us to go hunting this year, so we used store-bought berries — not as much fun to gather, but every bit as delicious to eat.

The recipe we use is one we adapted from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook, which has been our go-to guide for years. She used plums in her recipe, but this crumbly crust is also great with peaches, apples, blackberries, or blueberries (pictured below).

There are several pick-your-own farms near Tyler, so our family normally goes every year as soon as the berries are ripe. Working together, we pick all we can and freeze what we can’t eat immediately, to be used later in muffins, pancakes, cobblers, crisps, and crumbles.

But this dish remains our favorite. Try it, and you’ll understand why!

Ingredients

2 sticks real cream butter
2¼ cups flour
¾ cup brown sugar (packed)
¾ cup granulated sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
½ cup rolled oats
2½ cups blueberries