The Crunchiest Summer Fruit Crumble

This is a great idea and I will continue baking the crumble before adding to the fruit. However, I reverse the first two ingredients: 1 1/2 cups of oats to 1/2 cup of flour. More crunch and healthier. My family loves it this way.

Put the crumble on parchment paper. No need to scrub baking sheet.

Melissa Clark rules. She is getting me through this pandemic, which I am spending almost entirely in the kitchen. Like Melissa, I learned about this technique many years ago (in my case, from Cooks Illustrated), used it once, loved the results, then promptly forgot about it. I just made this recipe from Melissa, and it’s heaven. From now on, it’s an extra dirty sheet pan for me – – so what? More than worth it for that crunch, especially if you serve with luscious vanilla ice cream.

I always add pecans, lightly toasted.

Second on the toasted pecans -- or almost any nut! Pistachios, hazelnuts and almonds also great, with an optional bit of extract, if you have it. But I have to say: why do cornstarch when you can do tapioca?? It's so clear and fresh and absorbent, I don't get why anyone would ever use cornstarch, flour or arrowroot. I also highly recommend mixing one fruit and one berry, eg peach-blueberry, tangerine-strawberry, etc. You can't go wrong however you do it, but I find these duets really balanced.

I made this gluten-free by using all rolled outs and eliminating the AP flour. Turned out delicious!

It's a great idea, but taking it one step further (or backwards, perhaps?) is to sprinkle 2 cups +/- of really good granola over the fruit and bake until bubbling.

If halving the recipe, add extra butter and oats.

Rhubarb is my absolute favorite. Currants as well if you can find them.

This is fantastic. I love this crumble. Baking the topping first is a fantastic idea. I went with 2 suggestions - used parchment for baking the topping and I used 1 1/2 cups oats and 1/2 cup flour. So delicious.

Hmm topping too dry. I think proportion of butter to oats and flour were way off. I would cut flour by ½ cup and add more butter!

Made exactly as written. The topping is delicious even on its own (I nibbled), but it’s a bit like having cookies on top of cooked fruit. The topping and fruit don’t meld the way they do with a traditional crisp recipe. I won’t use this recipe again.

I suggest before combining the dry ingredients with the cold butter, try this: Place the oats in the processor and pulse 3-6 times, then add pecans and pulse both together 2-4 times. What you want it for the oats to be pulverized it bit, and the pecans to maintain some light chunkiness. Then add the flour, sugar, and butter, etc. to these and pulse together. Then bake as suggested before adding atop the fruit to go into the oven.

used 32 oz bag of frozen strawberries, tossed with the cornstarch and sugar while fruit was still frozen. Allowed it to defrost at room temperature with the coating.. perfect!

When you do this, do you add butter to the granola and do you bake it first (as this recipe provides)???