Oops … plus a crumble
Well, looks like the updates didn’t go quite as smoothly as we had hoped. If you’re reading this through an RSS reader, you may have noticed the pictures weren’t showing up for a couple days, and if you tried to access anything on Friday during the day, you may have noticed that almost all the links weren’t working. Both of these were a result of our adding some code to try to stop hotlinking — I’ve been seeing some pictures showing up on other sites via hotlinking without attribution lately, and in trying to nip that in the bud we broke some other things. Anyway…. we think (hope!) that everything is fixed now. If you are still having issues, please let us know either via comment here or email to admin@meltingonline.com.
And, to make it up to you, let me share the apricot-cherry crumble I threw together the other night. This is another to file under “tasty-but-won’t-win-any-beauty-contests,” but it’s deliciously tart-sweet, with some crunch from the topping, it’s quick and easy, and it’s the perfect way to use up any of that wonderful summer fruit that you haven’t quite managed to eat out-of-hand before it starts to get kinda squishy.
I had some apricots left from our trip to the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market in SF with Phillip and Jammie last weekend, and they needed to be eaten, stat. I also had some cherries, so those were the two fruits I used, but really, this idea works with any summer fruit, and especially with the myriad different stone fruits. You can use any amount of fruit, just bake it in a different size dish, and since there’s no pie crust to fuss with, you just make however much topping you need. I ate mine topped with whipped cream, but it would also be good with ice cream, or just by itself. Here are the proportions I used, but scale it up or down and substitute as you like.
Apricot-Cherry Crumble
Endlessly adaptable: substitute other fruits, nuts, and spices; scale it up or down. Sugar may need to be adjusted depending on the type of fruit you use. As it is, this serves 2.
For filling:
about 2 c apricots and cherries, cut into pieces (1″ or so)
1/2 T flour
1 t sugar
1 t lemon juice (optional)
1/8 t ginger (optional)
1/8 t cardamom (optional)
For crumble topping:
1 T flour
1 T brown sugar
1 T finely chopped pecans
1 T oats
pinch of salt
1/2 t crystallized ginger
1/4 t ground ginger
2 T butter
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Combine filling ingredients in a baking dish. Combine topping ingredients. Sprinkle over the fruit and dot with butter.
Bake 350 F, about 30 minutes, until the fruit is bubbly and the topping is browned.
