Nutty Apple and Pear Crumble

Apples, Pears, Cranberries

Crumbles may not be the most photogenic dessert out there, but they sure do smell and taste amazing. I think of this recipe as more of a ‘Holiday or Christmas Crumble”. It’s easier than baking pie, plus warm gooey fruit with a crunchy nut topping clearly signifies ‘cozy winter dessert’.

It only takes a few minutes of baking for the aroma of warm spiced nuts and jammy apples to fill the kitchen. I find standing by the oven while taking deep breaths of hot cinnamon to be more therapeutic than a sauna at times. And, I’ve even been to a cinnamon infused sauna in Chicago. Yes, really. But hey, hot ovens and pies work their own kinda magic.

Before we get into the ingredients and such, I want to call out that this is a “crumble” and not a “crisp”. The key difference being the lack of oats in the topping. I’ve seen recipes for “oat crumble”, but that might’ve just been the use of keyword search taking over.

Crumbles and Crisps are quite similar in their methods and choices of fruits. However, the crumble topping is made with just flour and butter, lacking the whole oats familiar to a fruit crisp.

I read recently that “crisps” in France are actually crumbles as the French don’t use oats in their version. I can get on board with this decision as long as a crunchy element is still involved. My swap for the lack of chewy toasted oats is a mixture of chopped seasonal nuts.

Hazelnuts and walnuts are abundant here, but pecans on the other hand are not that common in France. The first batch I came across was at the candied nut stand while wandering the Bordeaux Christmas market. Where, I was informed that these particular pecans were imported from Texas. Ha, this Southern girl has never had to search for pecans.

However, a few days later I stumbled upon an organic store in town that sells whole pecans just before making this recipe. Straight into my crumble topping they went.