Peach Crisps

This new city is starting to feel more like home. At first, every noticeable difference served as a startling reminder that I am not home, but I’m starting to accept the gray squirrels, with their skinny tails, and the brown dirt as the new normal. And the hills! There are hills here, but those are still a novelty. I worry I’ll forget to pull the emergency brake when I park my car, and go back later to discover that my car is not where I left it.

The weather has been beautiful since I got here, sunny and warm but not terribly hot. I boycotted the oven for the entire month of July in Oklahoma, but I took advantage of Missouri’s temperate weather last weekend by baking these pretty peach (and plum) crisps. You can’t go wrong with warm peaches and cream, especially when a crispy, maple-yogurt oat topping is involved. It’s simple summer comfort food at its finest.

I willingly concede that peaches are perfectly sweet and juicy in their ripe, raw state, but this is a fun alternative that takes about thirty minutes from start to finish. The idea behind myindividual pear and apple crisps last fall came from Joy the Baker’s peach cobbler for one, and I couldn’t resist circling back to her original concept now that it’s peach season.

These individual peach crisps are different from traditional crisps in that they aren’t a gooey mess of fruit chunks underneath a crispy topping, but an actual peach half, held into its original shape by the skin. That means you don’t even have to peel the peaches! They really couldn’t be easier to make, so I think you should make some as soon as possible, like maybe tonight?

 

Peach Crisps

Author: Cookie and Kate

Recipe type: Dessert

Prep time:  10 mins

Cook time:  20 mins

Total time:  30 mins

Serves: 4

 

Sweet summer treats ready in 30 minutes! These peach crisps are made by simply topping peach halves with delicious yogurt-oat topping. Top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert or Greek yogurt for breakfast!

Ingredients

• 4 ripe yellow peaches*
• Scant 1/2 cup rolled oats
• Scant 1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup turbinado (raw) sugar, plus more for sprinkling on top
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons melted butter
• 2 tablespoons plain or vanilla Greek yogurt
• 2 teaspoons real maple syrup

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease a 13 by 9-inch baking pan (or pan(s) of equivalent size).
2. Cut the peaches in half, remove the pits and use a spoon to scoop out the red bits in the center.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. Use a big spoon to mix it well.
4. Scoop about two tablespoons of dough onto each peach half and use your hands to smush it into a mound. Sprinkle a little more raw sugar on top.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are golden. Top with ice cream or Greek yogurt and serve warm.

Notes

• Recipe adapted from 101 Cookbooks’ plum and peach crisp recipe and Joy the Baker’s peach cobbler for one.
• *You’ll see that I tried several kinds of stone fruit when I developed the recipe: yellow peaches, white peaches and red plums. I liked the yellow peaches the best. My plums may have been a little under ripe, as they seemed to need a sweeter topping to counteract the tartness. They were still very good, though!
• I used store-bought ice cream made by local Shatto Milk Company, but if you want to go the homemade route, try my light vanilla bean ice cream. And if you haven’t gotten your fill of peaches this summer, you’ll probably want to make my blackberry peach galette(warning: that one is more time- and labor-intensive than the crisps), or go for frozen peaches with my peach raspberry sorbet.