The summer is in full swing when you start seeing berries and cherries cropping up at the local farmers markets. Celebrate by baking a fresh berry crisp and truck it along to your next bbq. It’s a sure crowd pleaser!

This ‘award-winning’ recipe is from Tom’s first book Tom Douglas’ Seattle Kitchen.

Peak of Summer Berry Crisp
Yields one 9 inch pie pan, 5 or 6 servings

This is a great way to use the abundance of berries we get in the Northwest: raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, marionberries, salmonberries, huckleberries, boysenberries -- the berries seem endless at the peak of summer. You can use any combination of berries in this recipe. You can make crisps all year round, using whatever fruit is in season: rhubarb, apples, peaches….

We served this berry crisp one summer at the Bite of Seattle (a very large food event in the Seattle Center -- near the Space Needle). It was voted best dessert of the Bite. Do we have any idea how many hotel pans of crisp we made? Who knows? It was huge. We were scrambling every night of the event to keep up with the demand, begging our produce purveyor for more berries, baking, baking, baking…and enjoying every sweet minute.
This very simple dessert, still warm from the oven, cries out for a scoop of ice cream, and may be our favorite dessert of all.

For Crisp Topping:
2/3 cup oats
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into dice
2 cups raspberries
2 cups blueberries
1/2 cup sugar, (if your berries are very sweet you may want to use less sugar)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350º F. To make the crisp topping, combine the oats, brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a bowl. Add the diced butter to the dry ingredients and blend with a pastry blender or the tips of your fingers until crumbly. Set aside.
In another bowl, toss the berries with the sugar and flour, using a rubber spatula. Pour the berries into a 9 inch pie pan. Cover the berries with the crisp topping. Set the filled pie pan on a baking sheet to catch any juices, then place in the oven and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and the juices are bubbling.

On the Plate
Spoon generous portions of the warm Summer Berry Crisp into wide shallow bowls and top with scoops of ice cream or Sweetened Whipped Cream (see page 000).

A Step Ahead
If you enjoy making crisps, you could make a large batch of crisp topping (double or triple the recipe of crisp topping) and keep it in an airtight container in the freezer.

In the Glass
Late Harvest Gewurztraminer.