A warm fruit crisp is hard to beat when you’re craving a comforting dessert, but it doesn’t have to be reserved for fall. With fresh apples and frozen blackberries, this Apple Blackberry Crisp from Best of Bridge Slow Cooker Cookbook is easy to enjoy at any time of year. Even better, the slow cooker does most of the work.
Buy it here: Best of Bridge Slow Cooker Cookbook
Best of Bridge Apple Blackberry Crisp
Keep frozen blackberries on hand to make this comforting dessert any time of the year.
Base
- 4 apples, peeled and thinly sliced
- 2 cups blackberries, about 500 mL (no need to thaw if frozen)
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar (125 mL)
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour (30 mL)
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon (10 mL)
- 2 tbsp orange juice 30 mL
Topping
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour (125 mL)
- 1/2 cup ground almonds (125 mL)
- 1/4 cup large-flake (old-fashioned) rolled oats (60 mL)
- 1/4 cup melted butter 60 mL
Base: Grease the insert of a 3 1/2- to 4-quart slow cooker pot, then add and gently stir together apples, blackberries, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and orange juice.
Topping: In a bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, almonds and oats. Stir in butter. Sprinkle evenly over apple mixture. Place a clean tea towel, folded in half (so you have two layers), over top of insert. Cover and cook on High for about 3 hours, until bubbling. Turn off the slow cooker, remove the lid and let stand for at least 45 minutes to allow the fruit to thicken.
A Slow Cooker Apple Crisp with Oats
The slow cooker makes this dessert especially useful when the oven is occupied with dinner or when you’d simply rather prepare dessert ahead of time. Once everything is assembled, it cooks on High for about three hours.
There’s an important detail in the method that’s worth noticing. A folded clean tea towel is placed over the slow cooker insert before the lid goes on. As the crisp cooks, the towel helps keep condensation from dripping directly onto the topping and ruining that classic, crunchy texture.
The resting time at the end is just as important. It can be tempting to dig in as soon as you see the bubbling fruit, but giving the crisp at least 45 minutes to stand lets the filling thicken.
Although apple crisp and apple crumble can mean slightly different things depending on where you live, they’re both beloved members of the same family of fruit desserts. This version has the familiar apples, brown sugar and cinnamon many people expect from an apple crumble recipe, with blackberries adding colour and a pleasantly tart contrast. Ground almonds and rolled oats make the topping a little more substantial and give each spoonful plenty of texture.
Serve Apple Blackberry Crisp warm on its own or turn it into an especially cozy dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Since frozen blackberries work beautifully here, there’s no reason to wait for berry season. Keep a bag tucked in the freezer and this comforting Best of Bridge dessert can be on the menu whenever the craving strikes.
