Turn leftover fruit into the perfect summer dessert
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What a perfect way to use up any leftover fruit salad you might have! I had a fun time improvising through the recipe. I learned from Friends & Family baker-owner Roxana Jullapat that I could customize my flour mixture by using three parts all-purpose flour to one part alternative flour. I also added oatmeal and nuts to mine.
I like my seasonal fruit salad to be a bit chaotic (like a big bowl of summer jewels floating in a tutti-frutti brodo) and for every bite to be different.
Make sure to taste often, adapt to your fruit and experiment with your favorite flours, sweeteners and acidifiers. Your filling should taste like a supercharged version of its fruit — some perfect combination of sweet and tart — so make sure your additions are highlighting and heightening, not overpowering. Your main adjustment knobs here are sweetness (for which you can add sugars, cane syrups, agave, molasses, etc.), acidity (citrus is good in the winter and tart fruits work great, as does sour cream) and salt. I like my topping to be buttery, lightly sweet (use your favorite sugars here) and just salty enough that each bite makes me want to keep eating more.
Make too much fruit salad? Save it from the compost and turn it into a summertime crisp!
Also, I used the rest of my leftover fruit salad liquid to make an easy spritz: three parts sparkling white wine, two parts fruit juice and one part soda water. It was awesome.
Note: if you put melon or tropical fruit in your fruit salad, you might want to pick those out before baking.
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Make too much fruit salad? Save it from the compost and turn it into a summertime crisp.
Compost Crisp
Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
Make the filling: Mix the cornstarch with reserved fruit salad liquid in a small bowl until dissolved and set aside.
Mix the fruit salad with the vanilla, maple syrup or sugar, crème fraîche or sour cream, lime zest and fruit liqueur, if using. Taste and adjust to desired sweetness.
Put the fruit filling into an 8-inch square baking dish. Add cornstarch mixture to fruit until it reaches ¾ up the side of the container. Stir to combine.
Make the topping: Mix the flour, oats, pecans, white sugar, brown sugar, whole wheat or buckwheat flour and salt. Taste a little and adjust the salt and sweetness as desired.
Pinch the cold butter into the mixture a few pieces at a time. Continue pinching and squeezing until you have a mixture with many large boulders, surrounded by smaller, gravel-size pieces.
Sprink the topping in an even layer over the filling, leaving some small gaps where the filling can escape and bubble over.
Put the baking dish on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake until the topping is a deep golden brown and the filling is bubbling and reduced to a syrupy consistency, about 30 to 40 minutes. If the crust is not getting crispy, carefully broil until it does. Remove from the oven, and cool until just warm.
To serve, pour a puddle (about 1/4 cup) of cream into a shallow bowl and top with a generous scoop of the crisp. Eat in the sunshine.
