Sesame Stone Fruit Crisp

sweet, tart, toasty, nutty

Juicy fruit crisp or crumble is the best and easiest fruit dessert. There are a million ways to riff on it, you don’t need any special equipment to make it, you don’t even really need any measuring cups once you get a hang of the ratios. It’s also a great dessert for making in a vacation house that only has scratched up teflon pans, a serrated steak knife, plastic cooking utensils, and a lone glass baking dish in the cupboards. I think we’ve probably all stayed in a house like that…

I find myself constantly buying too much (just enough?) fruit this time of year and even though my kiddo eats through pounds of it, there are always a few stragglers. You can easily combine them to make a great little dessert with a blanket of toasty and buttery crumbs on top. Add enough sugar and spice to make the fruit taste more like itself, but not too sweet. Use nuts, oats, cornmeal, sesame seeds, or any other seeds to give the topping some texture.

This is my newest riff that utilizes a generous amount of toasted sesame seeds in the topping along with tahini to bind the crumbs together. The sesame gives it a gentle toasty flavor that isn’t too in your face, but makes it a little bit exciting. You’ll know it’s there but it’s not hitting you over the head if you know what I mean.

I absolutely love baking with stone fruit, and I almost always leave the skins on, even with peaches. Partially because of laziness, but also for the flavor. The skins tend to be the most tart part of the fruit and they add really nice balance to the crisp. My final version (pictured) included apricots, black plums, and nectarines. The plums gave it this incredible color!

There are very few ways for this recipe to go wrong so the only tip I have is to bake it until the juices are really bubbling all of the way around the edges.

And please don’t forget the ice cream!