Baking | Stone Fruit Crisps {Gluten Free} … Have a Happy 4th!
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
Albert Einstein
It’s been a summer of discontent here in North India, Gurgaon specifically as we’ve been subjected to the worse power cuts ever in a summer that’s been the worst in 33 years. The temperature touched 43-45C the whole of last week, and we went without power for 48 hours! It took a protest that blocked roads for hours to get heard. Meanwhile, everything in the fridge obviously threatened to spoil! One good thing … the stone fruit got perfectly ‘ripe for dessert’; hence these Stone Fruit Crisps!
Crisps are wonderful light and easy to make desserts that celebrate seasonal fruit. They have a streusel like topping which is baked ‘crisp’ and gives way to soft cooked fruit below! Crisps usually have oats, butter and brown sugar … and mine went gluten free! I love fruit bakes and something as quick as this is amazing! 2 days sans oven was enough to drive the baker in me mad! Even if I didn’t have the energy to bake, just the thought of perishables spoiling got to me. Exhausted with extreme heat, I found myself cooking up most of the stuff in my freezer! So we had good food all the time, and coolers too! Did I forget to tell you that the summer vacation got extended due to high temperatures? Yes, that happened too, so no respite for Mama!
I made a delicious Chicken keema with baingan {mince with eggplant} … strange combination but its what I had on hand, and it came out finger licking good. Incidentally I made it twice on one day as it got polished off the first time around, and I had more mince in the freezer {and no electricity of course!}.
I made summer coolers, many summer cooler … a strawberry mango punch, aam ka panna {Indian mango cooler}, a bel cooler {wood apple cooler which was definitely prettier than tastier}, a watermelon cooler. Anything that threatened to expire was tirelessly salvaged! To kill myself further, I even took pictures!
Then came …… another jar of HOT red harissa and some very reduced fat KFC style burgers! Sometimes one can hardly believe all the work that gets done when there is no electricity!! {In case you are wondering, we don’t use electricity for the stove. We use a gas supplied through a cylinder … so that is is probably a good thing!}
Oh and I made a Quark & Cherry Verrines too … no bake stuff!!Then sometime yesterday we had power restored and the kids looked so relieved, as did the poor dog in a fur coat. She was the first to race for the air conditioner, and slept the whole day through! So did the teens. It’s uncanny to think that as kids we lived through this as an accepted normal situation! Not a whimper, no backup yet happy go luck! Anyway, woke up this morning and my load of of stone fruit were ripe, ripe for dessert, so I set to work on something quick. While mixing the fruit I was curious to see if I could make the bake gluten free, so I tossed in some almond meal instead of plain flour to absorb the extra moisture. In the topping as well, I skipped the flour and added some almond meal. It’s always fascinating to see fruit crumbles and crisps bubble over the fruit juices! The crisp was delicious, bowl scraping good! Beautiful flavours!
Then I noticed that the colours of my little ceramic pots and bubbling juices were white, blue and red, so what better time to post this but now! Happy 4th of July to my readers from the US! Have a wonderful day.
Rustle up a crumble if you have 10 minutes, else stay cool and try this Summer Fruit Jelly that I created for Del Monte. You can find the recipe on their website here. It was fun and was made by my lad! Simple as can be yet stunning to look at, and delicious beyond expectation {if I may say so}!!
[print_this]Recipe: Stone Fruit Crisp
Summary: An easy, quick dessert baked with seasonal stone fruit. It’s quick to make and full of flavour… a summer classic with stone fruit which is gluten free too!
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:
- Filling
- 700g mixed stone fruit {6-8 peaches, 4-5 plums, handful of cherries, maybe two
- Juice of 1 lime
- 20g demerera sugar
- 20g almond meal
- 1 tbsp Kirsch {optional}
- Crisp topping
- 20g almond meal
- 20g demerera sugar
- 60g rolled oats
- 60g unsalted butter, chilled, cubed
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 200C. Place 6 ramekins on a baking sheet.
- Filling
- Stone the peaches and plums, chop with skin and place in a big non reactive/glass bowl.
- Add the remaining ingredients and toss well to mix. Divide between 6 ramekins, pressing down gently to level out.
- Crisp Topping
- Place all ingredients in bowl and food processor and pulse briefly in short intervals until a breadcrumb like mix is achieved.
- Divide the topping between the ramekins to cover the surface. Gently press into place.
- Bake for 30 minutes until bubbly and golden brown on top. If the top begins to get too brown, tent with a sheet of aluminum foil.
- Serve warm or at room temperature. We are happy to have them chilled too!
- Note: For gluten free baking, please ensure the oats are from a gluten free source.
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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India
Deeba @ PAB
About me: I am a freelance food writer, recipe developer and photographer. Food is my passion - baking, cooking, developing recipes, making recipes healthier, using fresh seasonal produce and local products, keeping a check on my carbon footprint and being a responsible foodie! I enjoy food styling, food photography, recipe development and product reviews. I express this through my food photographs which I style and the recipes I blog. My strength lies in 'Doing Food From Scratch'; it must taste as good as it looks, and be healthy too. Baking in India, often my biggest challenge is the non-availability of baking ingredients, and this has now become a platform to get creative on. I enjoy cooking immensely as well.
19 Comments
baker in disguise
My sympathies on the weather.. I absolutely abhor summer.. and at those temps.. no electricity.. thats cruelty at its worst!! while i am quite taken in with the gluten-free topping of these crisps.. am more taken in with the pics of your coolers!! the watermelon and the strawberry-mango getting my vote in this weather!!
Rosa
I could not stand such temperatures. I already can’t stand temperatures over 32° C…
Those crisps are marvelous and I particularly like the punch, jelly as well as the summer coolers.
cheers,
Rosa
Nisha
The Crisp sure sounds like a no-fuss dessert.
Sucks to hear about the frequent high temperatures and power cuts. Even I can’t imagine how I lived without these ‘luxuries’ normally in my childhood. :-/
That’s a lot of beautiful beverages and pictures of each. Guess it was better to use up everything for consumption than risk spoilage. To think of it, does lack of electricity makes one more efficient? Haha. 😀
Gera@Sweets Foods Blog
Sometimes a hot problem can be converted in a dessert like this with the stone fruits 🙂
There is hot, here is cold we can exchange temperatures, deal?
Amazing the mango-strawberry punch and the finally baked dessert is so inviting!
Best for you Deeba,
Gera
Rituparna
Oh God ! I can’t get over all those delicious pictures. I wish I lived close. I would camp at your place all day. 🙂
arundati
what a fantastic array of yummies! i asked earlier… now again… adopt me deeba! loved the cups in which the crsips are baked… here we just eat fruit as is… lazy lazy me!
chinmayie @ love food eat
OMG! Each one of those things look zoo heavenly! I can’t believe you actually cooked so much and took so many photos in sum me wheat without electricity! You are amazing!
I too love summer crisps. So easy and flavorful.
Sawsan (Chef in disguise)
It reached 40 a couple of weeks ago here and I could hardly breath..to think of that and no electricity sounds like a nightmare!
I am in love with all those coolers, the watermelon in particular is calling my name,
and the stone fruit crisp is my favorite thing to do with those juicy summer fruits.Yours looks mouth watering good
Gauri
I thanks my stars that am in Bangalore where the weather is wonderful all through out the year, have stayed in gurgaon for some time and I know what you mean. I love the stone fruit crisp and you pics are awesome as always!!
Baker Street
The cherry crisp looks heavenly Deeba! Your pictures are stunning as usual!!
Sanjeeta kk
Hats off to this passionate baker to even go near the oven and bake something when the weather God is burning fire…the crisps looks yummity-yum!
Born27
This Stone Fruit Crisp looks incredibly delicious! perfect for the season. I’m craving for it and i can’t wait to try this. Thanks for sharing your recipe!
Abbhirami Rajagopal
Oh my that sounds brutal yet delicious! Strange..
A lovely post though
Nicolle Olores
This stone fruit crisps gluten free looks great and delicious! I love the taste of a cookie that is gluten free. Thanks for sharing this here and I will probably try this at home.
Shilpa
Deeba – all of the pictures are absolutely gorgeous! I am definitely making the crisps this weekend. And would you mind posting the recipe for the keema baingan?
Many thanks,
Shilpa
Sunia
You have the best pictures! The crisp looks delish – will try it soon. Any chance of you posting the recipes for the kheema baingan and the aam ka paana (and the other punches too) ? They all look so yummy!
Deeba @ PAB
Thank you for taking the time to write. Will do …soon!
Julidarma
Wo it seems very delicious. Make me hungry
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