Strawberry-Peach Oatmeal Crumble

My friend Julie makes an amazing, to-die-for chocolate chocolate chip bundt cake. It’s DELISH!! Everyone loves it. In fact, my son cried this week when he found out Miss Julie had brought it and he didn’t get a piece.

I do not have Julie’s recipe. Sorry.

What I do have is the recipe I created this week that — even though nothing compares with chocolate — I hoped would not hide too far in the shadow of Julie’s confectionery delight when served side-by-side at a pastoral luncheon.

I know one should never, ever serve un-tested recipes to people outside the immediate family, but I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t make anything that even remotely resembled cake (remember my competition?) and the ingredients I thought I had I didn’t actually have and — Have you ever entered a grocery store the day before a blizzard? It’s not pretty. I chose to make do rather than leave my family bereaved, mourning wife and mother.

So I threw together what I had as best I could, said a prayer and trotted off to church. The result was wonderful! (Even if I do say so myself.) It’s kind of like a cobbler, but tastes more like shortbread atop deliciously baked fruit. Sweet, but not too sweet. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Strawberry-Peach Oatmeal Crumble

• Peaches, sliced then cut into 3/4″ pieces
• Strawberries, quartered

** You need 4 cups of fruit total, but the ratio is up to you. I did about 2:1, peaches to strawberries. Because strawberries usually boil down into a thick jam, you’ll need more peaches to make it chunky or, if you prefer, more strawberries to make it sweeter and smoother. **

• 1/4 c brown sugar
• 1 c flour
• 1/3 c granulated sugar
• 1/2 c (1 stick) butter, softened
• 1/3 old-fashioned oats

Preheat oven to 375′F.

Combine the peaches, strawberries and brown sugar in a bowl. Stir until the fruit is evenly coated and the sugar begins to form a syrup. Place mixture in a glass baking dish (either 8″ square or a deep pie dish). If you’re using fresh fruit, pour 1/4 c water over the fruit.

(I always use frozen fruit in the winter. It’s frozen when fresh, rather than grown thousands of miles from the wintry North then transported here. If you use frozen fruit, you don’t need to add the water. As the fruit thaws, it will create its own water, thus cooking the fruit and keeping it moist on its own.)

At this point, your dessert should look like this:

In a clean bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. Use a fork (or your fingers) to mix until crumbly. Place this mixture in an even layer over the fruit. Bake at 375′F for 40-45 minutes, or until the top is a light golden brown and the fruit appears bubbly underneath.

It should look like this:

Allow to cool slightly (about 5 minutes). Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream!