More and more people in my life have switched to gluten-free diets, after finding out that gluten was the culprit in making them feel awful or just plain sick.
Before last month, I had never baked anything gluten-free. Honestly, I've looked at recipes and they often require ingredients that I don't have in my pantry, like xanthum gum. Yeah, I haven't expanded my staples to include that...
yet.
So, I was pleased when I finally found a
recipe from the NY Times for a dessert that only called for things I already had in my pantry shelves (minus one thing!). We were having our neighborhood BBQ, and I wanted to make some options for our next-door neighbors who are gluten-free peeps.
While I was at the store for the gluten-free rolled oats, I picked out some ripe nectarines and blueberries.
I prepped the fruit right in the glass dish that I was going to bake it in. So, I greased the edges on the pan and added the sliced nectarines and blueberries. To that, I added agave nectar, vanilla extract, and almond extract. The recipe calls for cinnamon, but I think I left it out on accident. The recipe has you bake the fruit mixture before adding the topping. I baked the fruit for 20 minutes while I worked on the crumble topping mixture.
The topping actually takes two steps as well. You also have to bake it on its own before adding it to the fruit and baking it a second time.
The topping is made from gluten-free oats, quinoa flour, turbinado or raw sugar, nutmeg, salt, and unsalted butter. The recipe can be found {
here}.To make the quinoa flour, you grind up quinoa in a blender or spice grinder. I used my handy Magic Bullet. It worked quite well!
Then you blend all the dry ingredients in a food processor. Then you add the butter and pulse it until it's well-combined. I doubled the recipe because my dish is slightly bigger than your standard 9 x 13. I had plenty left over, so I froze it and kept it for future crumbles!
In a 350 preheated oven, you bake the mixture on parchment paper (or foil) on a baking sheet for 20 minutes, rotating the pan if needed at the halfway point.
Here's the before (top picture) and after (bottom picture). You can see how the quinoa and oats brown and crisp up in the oven.
By the time the topping was ready, the fruit had been sitting for about 30 minutes, and the juice from the fruit had collected in the dish. It seemed a bit watery without any thickener, so I added mixed a little bit of water with about a tablespoon of corn starch and tossed it in with the fruit before sprinkling on the oat topping. I then baked the whole dish at 350 for another 20-25 minutes until it was bubbling at the bottom.
The crumble was a hit! Our neighbors loved it and kept all the leftovers (it was one of four desserts that night). I've since made another crumble with pluots, apples, and cherries, which was equally as yummy. It's definitely a healthy dessert, low in added sugar, and high in fiber and protein!
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