Civilization is CRUMBLE-ing
So last week, after the news that our lovely (sarcasm) Cheeto in Chief pondered sending a nuke into the hurricane to stop it, my husband and I decided it would be best to run away to his homeland in Vancouver, Canada for a week to wait it out and see what happens.
While there, I contemplated what kind of dessert I could make… should it be based on a radioactive hurricane or perhaps just the general idea that our country and the world is FALLING APART? Which catastrophic thought was more prevalent in my brain? “Civilization and life as you know it is crumbling to dust!” my constantly terrified brain yelled.
Well, I guess that answers it. A crumble it would be! Now here’s the coolest thing in the entire world…Canada is such a perfect utopia that there are just berries GROWING ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD EVERYWHERE! Like, blackberries are considered a weed to them?!?! I don’t understand. I come from a place where if you want to grow berries you have to try SO HARD to get even one berry to grow and once you pick it, the plant just kind of shrivels and disintegrates into a pile of ash. Meanwhile, these jerks are just diving into their pools filled with extra blackberries; not even realizing how good they’ve got it.
So I took it upon myself to force my husband and his friend that we were staying with, to go out with me into the darkening evening to pick as many blackberries as we could. A couple of lessons I learned while doing this:
1. Don’t wear shorts and forget to use any kind of bug spray, because your legs and arms will absolutely end up being eaten alive by mosquitos. And, 2. Blackberry bushes have LOTS of thorns so be careful or you’ll end up bleeding from the thorns and that will attract EVEN MORE mosquitos.
Once we collected as many berries as we could before we passed out from blood loss, we went back to the house and I started working out the recipe.
Now this is a SUPER easy recipe. I didn’t have all the time in the world so I had to think of something that would be delicious AND wouldn’t take forever to make. I ran to the store to get any ingredients that I still needed, then came back and set to work.
Alright, lets get into the mood…actually I don’t really even need to do that, all you have to do is just read the news. (haha jokes….kinda….ok not really everything is terrible)
Now that you’re in the same headspace as me, let’s get ready to CRUMBLE!!!
First things first, we’ve got to make the topping. In the bowl of your mixer, combine your graham crumbs, brown sugar, salt, and cold butter and mix it with the paddle attachment.
Mix it until it sticks together slightly and the chunks of butter are around pea-sized.
Pour that out onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, and bake at 325ºF for about 8 minutes or until it starts to smell delicious. It helps to bake the topping a little bit before adding it to the top of the berries, otherwise it’ll end up more like a mush than a crumble. Baking it will help it retain its crunchiness.
While that bakes, wash your berries and put them into a bowl. Add in the remaining filling ingredients (brown sugar, salt, pepper, corn starch, bourbon, bitters) and gently stir until all the berries are coated in what’ll look like a muddy mess.
Pour that into a baking dish (this recipe fits into an 8” x 8” pan), and completely cover the top of the filling with your graham topping. Pop that sucker into the oven and let it bake for about 20-30 minutes at 375ºF or until the berries start to bubble up, much like the way unrest is bubbling up.
Let that cool for a while, and serve it with whipped cream, or, if you’re REALLY depressed about the direction our world is heading, pile on the ice cream! Calories don’t matter if the world ends so devour all the sugar and bad for you things that you want!
Civilization is CRUMBLE-ing
- prep time: 10 mins
- cook time: 28-38 mins
- total time: 38-48 mins
Servings: One 8x8 inch pan full of delicious berry crumble
Topping:
**Please note conversions to cups etc. are as close as I could get them but they are still estimations, it’s always much better to measure in weight because it's more exact!
Ingredients:
- 165 g. (1 stick + 3T) Butter, cold and cubed
- 150 g. (3/4 c. + 2 T) Brown Sugar
- 240 g. (2c. + 3T) Graham Crumbs
- 3 g. (1/8 tsp) Salt
Instructions:
- Combine graham crumbs, brown sugar, salt and butter cubes into the bowl of your mixer.
- Mix on low with the paddle attachment until only pea-sized pieces of butter remain and everything kind of sticks together a little.
- Bake at 325º F for about 8 minutes.
- Remove and let cool.
Filling:
Ingredients:
- 2c. Blueberries
- 2 c. (or 2 bskts) Blackberries
- 1 c. Brown Sugar
- ¼ c. + 1 T + 1tsp Corn Starch
- 1 T Bourbon
- 3 shakes Bitters
- ¼ tsp. Salt
- 1/8 tsp. Pepper
- ½ ea Fresh Lemon Juice
Instructions:
- Wash the berries and put into a bowl.
- Add brown sugar, corn starch, salt, pepper, bourbon, bitters, and lemon juice.
- Gently stir until all berries are coated.
- Pour into an 8x8 inch pan
- Completely cover the top with the topping.
- Bake at 375ºF for 20-30 minutes or until the berries start to bubble up the sides.
- Let cool for a little then serve with whipped cream or ice cream and enjoy!
All Joking aside, the hurricane that hit the Bahamas was DEVASTATING even without nuking it first, and will take years to get everything back to the way it was there before the storm. If you’ve got an extra $5 or whatever laying around, may I suggest donating it to one of the many charities doing good work to help the people down there.
Here is a link to an article on the Washington Post with a list of places to donate.