Making a Crumble

If you've never had one, a Crumble is a type of dessert made with fruit and a crumbly topping.  They're easy to make and can be made with many different fruits, such as apricots, berries, peaches, apples, pears, etc.  This one is made with nectarines.


First, assemble your ingredients.  You will need:

Starting at the top and going clockwise: 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar (brown sugar is ALWAYS firmly packed, which makes me wonder why it doesn't come that way from the store), 1/2 tsp. salt, generous 1/4 tsp. of both cinnamon and nutmeg, one stick of butter (at room temperature), 1/2 tsp. vanilla, 2 tsps. fresh lemon juice, 2 Tbsp. flour, 1/3 cup sugar and 3/4 cup flour.  The flour is plain flour.  

Pit and chop the fruit.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Get a baking dish (no larger than 9 inches) and butter the inside. I just pick up the butter (with clean hands, of course) and butter the dish that way.

Mix together the 3/4 cup flour, the brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Chop up the butter and scatter it across the top like the next picture.  Use a pastry cutter (in the lower left corner of the picture) to mix the butter in until it has a crumbly texture.  If you don't have a pastry cutter, get one.  Or you can use two knives but it's much easier with the cutter and they don't cost much.  Put it on your Christmas list, if you must.

The crumble should look like this:

Next, in a large bowl add the vanilla and lemon and then toss the chopped up fruit to coat.  Once it's evenly coated, add the 2 Tbsp. flour and the sugar and toss again until all pieces are evenly coated.

Place the fruit in the prepared baking dish and sprinkle the crumble evenly on top.  It will look like this:

Toss it in the oven for 40 minutes.  When it's finished, it will look like this:

And it will taste fantastic!

Bon appétit!