Peach-Berry Corn Crisp

Peach-Berry Corn Crisp | A Sweet Spoonful I’ve had this recipe in the hopper for a few weeks, thinking I’d stagger it out and share it with you in a bit as we’re traveling to see family back East. But yesterday on the drive back from the Adirondacks to my mom’s house in Vermont, we saw a handful of crimson leaves and signs for cider donuts and I thought: Now Is The Time. I hope you still have some fresh corn where you are and some late summer berries because this incredibly simple late summer fruit crisp is the best thing I’ve baked this season. Let’s talk about it.

Peach-Berry Corn Crisp | A Sweet Spoonful I subscribe to a few food magazines and have an odd, inefficient system when a recipe catches my attention: I fold down the page first and then toss the magazine aside somewhere. Eventually I go back through, tearing out the pages I folded down and recycling the rest of the magazine. Then at long last, the little snipped recipes get filed away in a haphazard binder and I generally forget all about them. I try to keep like with like, so cookies are together with bars, and there’s a little biscuit section. I have a few pages on making the best two-day meat ragu in case a large chunk of time should open up in a day in which I’d find myself inspired to do so (this has yet to occur). But a few recipes remain in my lingering seasonal memory, and this is one of them.

Peach-Berry Corn Crisp | A Sweet Spoonful This Berry Corn Crisp from Bon Appetit caught my eye first for its simplicity and second thanks to the interesting addition of fresh corn in the cornmeal topping. I knew I could tweak it, adding some whole grain flour, cutting back on the sugar a bit and throwing in some ripe September peaches.

Peach-Berry Corn Crisp | A Sweet Spoonful It was quite warm in Seattle the week leading up to our trip, and turning on the oven to bake a crisp wasn’t something I would’ve advised. But once it cooled, Sam deemed this the best fruit dessert I’d ever made and we had it with ice cream for dinner sitting outside deadheading the roses, watering the lawn, and noticing the changing light.

Peach-Berry Corn Crisp | A Sweet Spoonful

Peach-Berry Corn Crisp

Yield: 6-8 servings
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 50 mins
Inactive time: 30 mins
Total time: 1 hr 40 mins

A simple late summer dessert, this crisp is not too sweet so it doubles as breakfast in our house. To mix things up, use any berries you’d like — or really, any mix of fruit. I think the crisp is best the day it’s made but you can certainly make it up to 1 day in advance. If you don’t have spelt flour, feel free to use whole wheat pastry or whole wheat flour instead.

Adapted from: Bon Appetit

Ingredients

For the filling:

3 cups (390g) fresh or frozen blueberries

2 cups (300g) diced peaches (about 4 medium peaches)

1/4 cup (45g) natural cane sugar (like turbinado)

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

3 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

For the Crust:

2/3 cup plus two tablespoons (90g) spelt flour

2/3 cup (105g) medium-grind cornmeal

1/4 cup (45g) natural cane sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

10 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 cup fresh corn kernels (from about 1 large ear)

To serve:

Vanilla ice cream, optional

Instructions

Toss blueberries, peaches, sugar, lemon juice and zest, cornstarch and salt into a shallow 2-quart baking dish. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 375 F. Whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar and salt in a medium bowl. Using your hands, work butter into dry ingredients until there aren’t any dry spots of flour left and mixture holds together when squeezed (ok if it’s a bit chunky). Add corn and toss to evenly distribute. Press topping between your fingers and break into large pieces over the filling.

Bake crisp until topping is golden brown and juices are bubbling, 50-60 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes before serving. Serve warm or room temperature with vanilla ice cream, if you’d like. Crisp can be made 1 day ahead; store covered at room temperature.

Abby
September 7, 2017

This is so intriguing and brilliant! My favorite cornbread always has pieces of fresh sweet corn in it.

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Kelly Mahan
September 12, 2017

YUM! This looks sooo delicious! I love peach and berries, so I already know I'll love this too. Thank you for sharing it!

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megang
September 12, 2017

Awesome, Kelly! I hope you enjoy the recipe. Thanks so much + have a great week!

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sam-c
September 21, 2017

some-how, I am only seeing this now.
Hope there are some peaches left at the grocery store.

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Eve
September 25, 2017

Just realized, reading this, that I've made this recipe... both I and the guys over at now-defunct The Bitten Word had the same problem, where the corn topping just kinda sunk into the fruit, making it a kind of fruit compote with corn kernels in it. Did you do anything special to help prevent this from happening?

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megang
September 25, 2017

Hi, Eve. Hmm, that's so odd. I didn't have that problem at all. Two things I can think of that may have helped: I used a mix of berries (not just blueberries), so perhaps the larger berries kind of helped hold it up? Second, I did use a coarse ground polenta vs a fine ground cornmeal and I can see how perhaps the fine ground cornmeal would bake up a bit more mushier and could sink? But honestly mine stayed right on top and was really excellent. If you try it again, let me know how it turns out! Enjoy the week,

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September 7, 2017

Peach-Berry Corn Crisp