Fruit Crisp - Customizable Of Course

There's nothing like watching a piping hot dessert come right out of the oven. The moment you open that door and the bundled up air escapes that oven, running the smell of butter and spices throughout your house. It's incredible. Certainly one of the few things everyone should experience at least once in there life. But this post isn't going to be about me pitying you guys, it's about the cooking.

In my house we were always taught about this elusive time when autumn transitions into winter. That subtle time of the year when everything is just slightly perfect. In my household we call it Aunter, and if you don't know where that comes from, all we did was take autumn and summer and mash them together.

Awesome Aunter. I should copyright that. Hmmmmmmm...

Anyways that beautiful time of year inspired me to make this delicious dessert. Well really this post isn't so much a recipe as it is an idea, but I'll show you the ropes nevertheless. And really the goal of this blog is to allow YOU to make anything you have at home, into something extra-ordinary. So let's get started.

For this recipe you're going to need equal parts of flour and butter, plus rolled oats for texture. It's important that your butter is cold because this allow the flour to evenly incorporate into the butter without everything turning into a dough. It's also how you get that crumbly, buttery texture that everyone loves. Add sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, really any spices that fits your style. ADAPT. You don't need me to tell you the ingredients.

So as you can see those are the ingredients you need for the crisp part of the dish. And really once you have the first component of the dish you can apply this technique to any fruit crisp you want. You can do a strawberry and rhubarb crisp, an apple crisp, blueberry, pineapple whatever you want. But we just so happened to have fresh cranberries and super ripe bosc pears, but any fruit will surely do. In a large bowl I gently tossed my pears (which I cut in cubes) and my cranberries in some lemon juice and some sugar and let those macerate. Which means just to let them soak. Those natural flavors of the fruits with sharpen up and create a wonder filling for our crisp.

After that I threw the fruits in a large greased casserole dish, sprinkled on the topping so they evenly covered the fruits, and tossed that in a 400 degree oven. It's just that simple minimal work, not a lot of dishes to clean, and so worth the 40 minutes of baking. And isn't that what this time of the year is all about, spending the most time you can with the ones you love.

When you take this out of the oven you will be so shocked at the intense, delicious aunter flavor. The difference in textures from the chewy fruits to the crisp topping is heavenly. And it would be criminal to not serve this will a scoop or ice cream or whipped cream. Really any cream will do. Once you make this everyone in the neighborhood will envious of your lifestyle. (Chow-fectionary Creations is not responsible for any death threats)

But in all seriousness bake this and create those memories. And as always,

Chow!