Peach, Fig and Raspberry Crisp with Cardamom

I didn't have enough of any one fruit to do any fruit dedicated dessert so I turned to the kitchen sink of desserts again, the crisp. Since I am still all about Indian food after my Big Fat Hindu Wedding weekend, I knew that whatever I did, I would be adding cardamom to it. I needed something to serve after our dinner of Chorizo Sloppy Joes that wouldn't be terribly heavy or overly sweet.

I can't tell you how much I am loving my Alton Brown crumble topping that I have been keeping in the fridge. Even if you only have a cup of fruit, you can turn it into a yummy crumble on a whim and have yourself a little sweet treat in the middle of the afternoon and nobody will ever even have to know.

Peach, Fig and Raspberry Crisp with Cardamom

2 ripe peaches (i didn't bother to skin them) chopped
6 green figs, chopped
about 1 cup of fresh raspberries
juice from half a lemon
the seeds from about 6 cardamom pods, crushed
about 2 tbls brown sugar
about 1/4 cup of crumble topping goes IN the fruit mixture
about 1.5 cups of crumble topping for the top of the crisp

crumble topping:

1 cup flour

2/3 cups sugar

1 cup mixed, chopped nuts ( I did a third each pecans, walnuts and almonds)

1 3/4 cup crushed graham crackers

1/3 cup chopped crystalized ginger

1 stick cold butter, cut into chunks

To make the topping, mix all the dry ingredients together and then work the cold butter in with your hands or a pastry cutter until its all crumbly and pebbly. This will keep in the fridge to use on more crisps, crumbles and something Alton calls a grunt. Whatever.

Preheat the oven to 375F

To assemble the crisp, mix the fruits with the lemon juice, brown sugar and cardamom in a bowl, mix in about 1/4 cup of the crumble topping and then put all of that into baking vessel. It's pretty loosey goosey regarding size of vessel because, frankly, you just need one that fits the volume of fruit you are using and you should follow my recipe loosely. If you want to make one that is a bit smaller, use a bit less fruit and maybe cut down a tad on the sugar and crumble topping that you mix it with the fruit. To make a bit more, you probably don't need to increase anything. It's also nice to make little, individual crisps like I did with my cherries.

Now throw some of the crumble topping over the fruit. Again, I suggested 1 1/2 cups but it's also up to you. Do you like tons of topping? Use more. If you like it really rich, you might even want to cut in a bit more cold butter. You can't screw this thing up.

Bake it for about 35 to 45 minutes until you can see that the juices are bubbling up through the topping around the edges and the topping itself is nicely browned.

Let it sit out at room temp for at least 15 minutes before eating it or you will burn your tongue but it still needs to be warm so that the ice cream you serve with it will get all melty and leave a nice soupy, creamy mess at the very end to slurp up with a spoon.