Peach crisp

80% of the joy of pie with 20% of the work. Adapted from the apple crisp recipe in Craig Claiborne’s classic New York Times Cookbook. Play with your fruit fillings – peach-blueberry is another summer favorite.

Filling ingredients

• 6 cups fresh peaches or nectarines, sliced (about 6 large)
• 1/2 cup sugar (you can cut to 1/4 cup if your peaches are super sweet)
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• Sprinkle of nutmeg (or cinnamon/ginger/cloves or combination)

Topping ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, cold
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (omit if using salted butter)
• 1/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Place peach slices in 8″x8″ square baking dish. Sprinkle with sugar, lemon juice and spices. Stir briefly to mix in.
3. Add flour, sugar and salt (if using) to a mixing bowl. Cut butter into small pieces and add to bowl. Blend the cold butter into the dry ingredients until mixture is crumbly (use a fork, pastry cutter or two knives, a few pulses in a food processor, or your fingers to rub bits of butter in repeatedly, releasing quickly to keep the butter cold). Mix in nuts, if using.
4. Sprinkle the topping mixture evenly over the filling in the baking dish. Bake for about 45 minutes, until topping is golden brown.
5. Serve hot with vanilla ice cream.

Notes

• The filling is super flexible – more or less fruit, different fruit, lots of spice or none, less sugar or more, brown sugar or white, lemon or no, depending on what you have and what you like.
• Baking dish size is flexible too – a larger dish will result in a thinner crisp; smaller dish will make a thicker one. Though with a smaller dish you may want put a rimmed baking sheet under the baking pan to catch any sticky juice that bubbles over during cooking.
• For a 9″x13″ baking dish, I like to make 1.5x the topping: 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter, 3/4 teaspoon salt (not needed if using salted butter). For fruit, 8-9 cups should work well, but normally I just cut enough fruit until it looks like enough in the baking dish. It’s an easygoing dessert.
• If your fruit is particularly juicy, mix in a tablespoon of flour or cornstarch with the filling. This will thicken the juices during cooking.
• You can bake at 375 degrees F if you are in a hurry – saves a few minutes.

Here’s a link back to the post and pictures.