Vegan Berry Crisp

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made with fresh blueberries, frozen blackberries, and slightly more topping than the recipe

Summer means berries and berries mean crisps. But nothing keeps me away from this crisp recipe: I freeze lots of berries to enjoy it all year. I’ve made it with all kinds of berries, strawberry/rhubarb, and even fruits like mango and peach. The recipe began as the Seattle Times Three-Berry Crisp with Butter-Nut Crumb Topping but over the years it’s morphed into my own. One thing’s the same: the topping is flakey, rich, and studded with chopped walnuts.

I use a light hand with the topping and plenty of berries. I let the berries speak for themselves instead of adding lemon or sugar to them. The crisp is still plenty rich for my family, especially once they’ve added the inevitable scoop of ice cream on top.

The mixture of regular and powdered sugar gives the topping an especially soft, flakey crumb. That, and using a saturated fat instead of an oil to make it. I’ve tried both, and conceded that coconut oil works best here (or a slightly smaller amount of butter). If you make the vegan, non-dairy version I’ve written up below, the coconut oil used won’t give the crumble a noticeable coconut flavor. The coconut is there, but it’s subtle.

made with fresh raspberries and blueberries and a bit less topping

Any sugar works, but I often use coconut palm sugar here for its color and flavor. For the powdered sugar component you can make your own if you want. It only takes a minute (less with a Vitamix) in the blender or food processor. That way you can use all unrefined sugar. Keep in mind that you need a certain critical mass of sugar for the food processor or blender work properly, an amount which will vary depending on the size of your machine. So you’ll need to make more powdered sugar than the small amount required by the crisp. Whether you use store-bought or homemade powdered sugar, don’t omit it: it’s one of the secrets of the topping’s texture.

Enjoy! And if you make the recipe, please let me know how you liked it in the comments below.

5.0 from 2 reviews

Vegan Gluten-Free Berry Crisp

 

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Prep time

20 mins

Cook time

40 mins

Total time

1 hour

 

Author: Mary Saylor

Serves: 8

Ingredients

For the berry filling:

• 6-7 cups mixed berries (blueberry, blackberry, marionberry, raspberry)
• 2 Tbsp. tapioca starch

For the topping:

• ¾ cup unsifted flour (I used Pamela's gluten-free baking mix, you can use that or whole wheat pastry flour or white flour)
• ¼ tsp. baking powder
• 2 Tbsp. plus one tsp. unrefined granulated sugar such as coconut palm sugar or muscovado sugar
• 2 Tbsp. powdered sugar (can be homemade from unrefined sugar)
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
• ½ cup chopped walnuts
• ½ cup coconut oil

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. For the fruit, combine berries and tapioca starch in 9 by 12 glass baking dish.
3. For the topping, combine dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, granulated and powdered sugar, cinnamon, chopped walnuts) in a large mixing bowl.
4. Stir dry topping ingredients except walnuts together thoroughly.
5. Mix coconut oil into dry ingredients with your hands as you would with butter.
6. Add the chopped walnuts and mix.
7. The topping should come together as a crumb.
8. Gently place topping on top of fruit. Break up large crumbs, but don't mash the topping into the fruit.
9. Bake for 40 minutes or until topping begins to brown.

3.5.3208

Tagged as: blackberry, blueberry, coconut oil, coconut palm sugar, gluten-free baking mix, marionberry, raspberry, walnut