Looking for a comforting easy to make dessert, then this mixed berry crisp recipe with frozen berries is your answer.

We’re big on desserts with apples, especially in autumn. Apple crumble is a favourite, but apple open pie, or strudels also go down well. They’re fast comforting desserts, and I’m always looking for alternatives. When I don’t have cooking apples to hand from our tree (or freezer), I’m all over the mixed berries instead. This time I tried a mixed berry crisp.

Is it a crisp or a cobbler?

I’d have said it could be either, but it turns out a fruit crisp has a different type of topping to a cobbler. The latter being more traditionally British in my view, whereas a fruit crisp pudding tends to be more popular in the US.

The similarities between a crisp, cobbler (and yes a crumble) are that they’re hot bubbling, nearly stewed fruit with a topping of some kind on it. Often with the fruit bubbling through.

Crumble topping is flour, butter rubbed into make ‘breadcrumbs’ and sugar then smoothed over the top of the fruit before cooking. You can pep it up with light spices, oats, coconut or other extras depending on your fruit filling.

A crisp includes oats in the topping and sometimes nuts, and is unsurprisingly a bit crunchy and crispy on top. You can use store bought granola as your base for your topping.

Cobblers have a dough based topping, a little like dumplings sitting on top. Cobblers are quite often savoury as well.

What fruit to use for a mixed berry crisp

Like all of these type of desserts, you can use whatever fruit you like. I love apple and blackberry when I’ve been brambling and picking apples in the autumn. The rest of the year I generally keep a pack of frozen mixed fruit in the freezer for when I need a quick pudding.

I tend to use a summer fruits mix which is a mix of redcurrants, blackcurrants, raspberries. I’m not keen on frozen strawberries so avoid those, and the OH doesn’t like cherries, so I have to remove those if they’re in the pack. But you could buy individual fruits you like and make your own mix.

Frozen or fresh berries?

Again this is down to choice. It’s certainly faster to use fresh because you can use it straight away.

I’ve seen recipes where you don’t have to defrost the berries, but personally I always do. Otherwise I find the filling gets really wet and thin when cooking rather than thickening. If I’m using frozen fruit, I leave it in the bag to defrost from the morning, or you could put the bag in some warm water to help it along. If you’re really short on time, defrosting in the microwave is fine too. Just strain it in a colander before using the fruit.

The fruit will make a really sticky juicy jam like filling, so there’s no need to also use the juice for the pudding.

How to make mixed berry crisp recipe

What I love about these recipes (crumbles or crisps) is they’re so simple to make.

Equipment

Ovenproof bowl – I have a myriad of options, but for this I like a round plain fairly shallow bowl
Mixing bowl
Scales

Sprinkle the fruit with the flour, sugar and vanilla extract and mix in. This will help prevent it being too watery a sauce (especially essential if you’re not defrosting your berries). I do this in whatever packaging the fruit is in to save on washing up (just check it’s not got holes in first if it’s fresh fruit plastic packaging). But you could do it carefully in the cooking dish or another large bowl.

To make the topping mix together the dry topping ingredients. Then add the melted butter to make the topping more clumpy.

Top the fruit with piles of the topping. I went a bit over the top on the fruit because I had too much but didn’t just want to save a small amount. If you have a similar problem with too little topping for your bowl, just make some more. You can always freeze any leftover topping in a zip lock bag or airtight freezer suitable container. This makes the pudding even faster to make the next time!

Then it’s easy to bake in a preheated oven for about 35-40 minutes until the topping is crisp and golden, and the fruit is bubbling and peeking through the topping.

The berries will be very hot, so leaving it 5 minutes to cool a bit is a good idea before serving. The mixed berry crisp recipe is delicious with vanilla ice cream, custard or cream.

mixed berry crisp in bowl with ice cream

Tips for making this berry crisp pudding

If you have leftovers (and I’d definitely recommending making a bigger dish than you need), you can reheat several ways.

In the oven in the original dish (I’d recommend covering with foil to stop the empty part of the bowl scrapings getting a bit burnt and crisped on). Or microwave a serving at a time.

Alternatively eat it cold. It’s just as delicious.