Skillet Berry Crisp with Almond-Cornmeal Topping

Son of a Southern Chef

This is a different twist on a standard berry crisp! It's quick to throw together and you only need one bowl plus the skillet to cook it in, so there's not a lot of clean up either. It's full of blueberries and raspberries, but not too sweet. It's great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream (but my son suggests skipping the ice cream if all you have is chocolate.)

Captions

[00:00]: [Music]
[00:04]: hello
[00:05]: and welcome to cooking the books with
[00:06]: heather today we are going to be making
[00:09]: a
[00:09]: skillet berry crisp with almond cornmeal
[00:12]: topping out of lazarus lynch's
[00:14]: son of a southern chef cookbook and get
[00:17]: this out of the way
[00:18]: yes i have a finger splint so i'll have
[00:20]: to be very careful with this hand today
[00:23]: it's nothing major honestly it's it's a
[00:26]: small fracture
[00:28]: it's fine um so this is a
[00:31]: different take on a crisp because a
[00:35]: crisp usually has
[00:36]: oatmeal in the topping and instead of
[00:38]: oatmeal he's going to use
[00:40]: uh cornmeal which will give it sort of a
[00:43]: different texture
[00:44]: and flavor um i think that's interesting
[00:47]: because this is
[00:48]: also uses blueberries which and we have
[00:51]: made a
[00:52]: blueberry i think she called it a
[00:55]: cobbler but it had a cornmeal
[00:57]: crust from deep run roots and i'll link
[00:60]: that up here
[01:01]: um so sort of the same vibe as that you
[01:04]: know cornmeal
[01:04]: and blueberries interesting we'll see
[01:07]: how it turns out
[01:09]: the first thing is i'm going to make the
[01:12]: crumble topping and so i just have to
[01:15]: mix a bunch of stuff and use my hands so
[01:18]: i'll be left-handed today that'll be
[01:19]: interesting but so
[01:21]: we're just going to combine we have some
[01:23]: all-purpose flour
[01:26]: we have the cornmeal
[01:30]: we have some brown sugar
[01:34]: we have some slivered almonds um
[01:38]: not slivered sliced almonds slivered are
[01:41]: sort of more
[01:43]: matchstick sort of shape these are just
[01:45]: sort of sliced thinly
[01:48]: you can use any nuts you like in a crisp
[01:50]: but
[01:51]: i thought this was interesting we're
[01:52]: obviously going to make it as close to
[01:54]: the original as we can we need a pinch
[01:58]: of fine sea salt
[02:02]: so there's that
[02:05]: and then we have some butter supposed to
[02:09]: be at room temperature mine's a little
[02:10]: bit chillier but it's been out for a
[02:11]: while
[02:13]: and we're going to mix this
[02:16]: with your hands until it's crumbly um so
[02:21]: i'm gonna do that
[02:25]: all right i'm gonna call this good um
[02:28]: you just don't want any huge pieces of
[02:30]: butter and you want it all to look kind
[02:32]: of like
[02:33]: wet sand with little bits of rock in it
[02:35]: and that's
[02:36]: good for this and i'm gonna go put this
[02:39]: in the refrigerator
[02:40]: until we're ready for it um to sort of
[02:42]: harden that butter back up a little bit
[02:44]: and then we're gonna make the berry part
[02:47]: and i'm gonna
[02:48]: wash my hand now we're ready to
[02:51]: make the berry part of our berry crisp
[02:55]: and i have a 10 inch cast iron skillet
[02:58]: here which is what he suggests you make
[03:00]: this in
[03:02]: and in this i have some raspberries and
[03:05]: some blueberries
[03:06]: you could use whatever mix of berries
[03:07]: you want um
[03:09]: this is about two-thirds raspberries to
[03:12]: one-third
[03:14]: two-thirds blueberries to one-third
[03:15]: raspberries so
[03:17]: that's what is in the recipe and we're
[03:20]: gonna add
[03:21]: in the recipe he says
[03:25]: um i think the making the filling part
[03:28]: needed some
[03:31]: copy editing here some because it
[03:35]: mentions combining blueberries
[03:39]: uh cornstarch brown sugar
[03:42]: flour which is not listed in the filling
[03:44]: ingredients
[03:46]: lemon juice and cinnamon but it doesn't
[03:48]: mention the
[03:49]: raspberries so we're just going to mix
[03:51]: all of the stuff that's in the filling
[03:53]: and not worry about flour because
[03:55]: pretty sure the cornstarch will do
[03:57]: whatever flour would do in here so
[03:60]: we're gonna go by the filling list
[04:01]: instead of the
[04:03]: list that's in the instructions because
[04:05]: there's no
[04:06]: amounts there so um
[04:10]: so we've got some brown sugar again
[04:14]: we have some cornstarch which like i
[04:16]: said will
[04:17]: help thicken like a like flour would but
[04:20]: sort of without lumps
[04:24]: flour is more likely to get lumpy um
[04:28]: cornstarch
[04:29]: we have a little bit of cinnamon here
[04:34]: and then we're gonna add just some lemon
[04:36]: juice um
[04:38]: lemon juice is and uh blueberries go
[04:41]: really well together and that's all we
[04:44]: need of that
[04:45]: and now i'm just gonna mix this with a
[04:49]: spoon
[04:50]: to get it all mixed up
[04:52]: [Music]
[04:56]: so i've got everything pretty much
[04:57]: pretty well mixed up
[04:59]: um and i'm just kind of making sure my
[05:02]: raspberries are
[05:03]: evenly distributed among the blueberries
[05:06]: so there's not just
[05:07]: half with raspberries and a half without
[05:11]: and i'm going to clean up a little bit
[05:12]: and then we're going to take the topping
[05:14]: out of the refrigerator and put it on
[05:16]: here
[05:18]: now this has been the refrigerator it
[05:19]: hasn't really had a lot of time to cool
[05:21]: because we've done this all at once but
[05:22]: you could make this
[05:24]: excuse me you could make this very far
[05:25]: ahead of time
[05:27]: it would be fine um but now we're just
[05:30]: going to sprinkle
[05:31]: this crumble mixture over the top of the
[05:35]: berry sort of evenly
[05:42]: okay so i've made a huge mess but i've
[05:45]: got my
[05:47]: uh crumble topping all over this and
[05:50]: we're gonna bake it
[05:51]: at 375 degrees for
[05:54]: 30 to 35 minutes you want the top to be
[05:57]: nice and golden brown and you want it to
[05:58]: be bubbling sort of
[05:60]: up around the edges and probably in the
[06:02]: middle too honestly
[06:04]: because usually a crisp will make little
[06:06]: bubbles sort of all over the place
[06:08]: and once it is brown to your liking it's
[06:11]: done he says to let it cool but serve it
[06:13]: warm
[06:14]: with a scoop of vanilla ice cream so
[06:16]: we'll let you know what it looks like
[06:17]: when we think it's done and how long
[06:19]: that takes
[06:21]: but yeah that is it it's pretty simple
[06:23]: right
[06:24]: we'll let you know what we think
[06:34]: on this episode of cooking the books
[06:36]: with heather you watched me make skillet
[06:38]: berry crisp with almond cornmeal topping
[06:40]: from lazarus lynch's son of a southern
[06:43]: chef
[06:44]: cookbook we enjoyed this recipe um
[06:49]: the kids are kind of on the berries but
[06:52]: i'm sure
[06:53]: you could switch out the fruit like you
[06:56]: can with almost
[06:57]: any crisp or cobbler recipe
[07:00]: and it just sort of changes the cooking
[07:02]: time and sometimes it changes the
[07:04]: um the what you need to thicken it
[07:08]: whether
[07:08]: it needs more thickening or less
[07:10]: depending on how much juice comes out of
[07:12]: the fruit anyway
[07:13]: our kids mostly chose to have just plain
[07:17]: ice cream
[07:18]: so it was it was enough to serve four
[07:21]: adults plus extra
[07:24]: um probably at least that was only about
[07:27]: half of it so i would say it's about
[07:28]: eight servings eight to ten it says in
[07:30]: here so i think that's about right
[07:32]: um i thought the almond
[07:35]: and cornmeal was an interesting take on
[07:39]: the the crisp instead of i often
[07:42]: i almost always use pecans instead of
[07:44]: almonds
[07:46]: and i use um and like almost everybody i
[07:49]: used
[07:50]: oatmeal instead of the uh corn starch
[07:53]: corn starch not cornstarch corn meal
[07:57]: that's what i meant so i used oatmeal
[07:59]: instead of the cornmeal
[08:01]: but uh so it was had a little bit less
[08:03]: of a chew
[08:04]: because you know cornmeal is ground
[08:06]: finder ground
[08:08]: finer um but
[08:11]: i liked the flavor it was good it still
[08:13]: felt you know like a crisp and not like
[08:15]: a cobbler
[08:16]: so that was good and uh
[08:19]: we were we were able to reheat it the
[08:22]: next day and it still tasted really good
[08:24]: um and it's really easy you could do
[08:26]: this in any oven proof
[08:28]: skillet it does not have to be a cast
[08:30]: iron skillet
[08:31]: but if you have one that's great and the
[08:34]: good thing is you don't have to
[08:36]: preheat that some recipes you preheat it
[08:38]: and then you put stuff in it this you
[08:40]: can sort of
[08:40]: put it in it put it all in the skillet
[08:42]: and then wait to bake it until you're
[08:44]: ready
[08:45]: um so that's good uh
[08:48]: and other than that it's just it was a
[08:50]: really easy recipe like most
[08:52]: crisps are and it just has a little bit
[08:55]: of a different take on it with the
[08:56]: cornmeal and the almonds
[08:58]: so if you enjoyed watching me make this
[09:01]: please give me a thumbs up
[09:02]: hit the subscribe button and come back
[09:04]: and watch me make something else next
[09:07]: week