Dutch Oven Apple Cranberry Crisp Recipe

You can do this without the Dutch oven and with other fruits

You can bake this recipe on the indirect side of a grill set up in 2 zones. Here you can see a Peach Blueberry Crisp I like to do in July before apples come in and while peaches and bluebs are in high season. We also do it with peaches and plums. Start with a firm, slightly underripe peach, cut it into bite size chunks, and pour the compote into a pan. I used Corning ware but a metal baking pan or a frying pan works fine. Shoot for 325°F in the indirect zone and bake for about 45 minutes or until you see the juices bubbling. Keep the lid closed because you need the reflective heat to brown the topping.

Other rustic fruit desserts

There are many other types of rustic fruit desserts. They have charming and confusing names that can vary from region to region, and nothing is set in concrete, or even batter for that matter. Thanks to Rebecca Richmond and her blog It's Not Easy Eating Green and her exhaustive dictionary of fruit desserts for helping me sort this out. She has recipes for each of these and more.

Brown Betty. A crisp with bread crumbs on top instead of flour.

Buckle. Cake batter topped with fruit compote and a streusel top baked in a pan or pot. The name might be because it was originally a cake that buckled under the weight of the fruit.

Clafouti. Whole berries, usually fresh cherries, are placed in a pan and then covered with an flour and egg custard. Or the custard can go in first, and then the fruit. Or both.

Cobbler. Fruit compote in a pan with biscuit dough, cake batter, cookie dough, and even pancake batter dolloped on top so the result looks like a cobbled road. Or maybe something you just cobbled together.

Crisp. Fruit compote in a pan or pot crowned with a crispy topping made from flour, butter, and sugar, called a streusel.

Crumble. A crisp with oats in the topping. But a lot of recipes called crisp have oats in them, so there.

Galette. A rustic pie, made with a bottom pie crust only, and usually not made in a pie pan but on a baking sheet. The edges are rolled in to keep the filling from spilling.

Pie. A pastry shell filled with fruit, custard, or nuts. Sometimes a second crust is placed on top, sometimes not.

Pandowdy. Fruit compote baked with a pie crust topping, but no crust beneath. Traditionally you are supposed to puncture the topping about halfway through the bake and paint the top with the juices.

Slump or grunt. A cobbler that is cooked on the stovetop. First you cook the fruit, then you add the topping and cover the pan so the top steams rather than bakes. Then you eat it and you slump, or grunt.