“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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