Gluten Free Cherry Blueberry Crisp

We had some friends over to celebrate my husband's birthday.  The dinner was wonderful, and the company was even better.  However, the few hours before the party were extremely hectic.  One of our friends was going to make a dessert, but there was a change in plans.  I had to come up with a dessert idea quickly, but I did not have any almond flour.  I ordered bulk almond flour last week, but it was not delivered until today.  So, I had to come up with something quickly.  I looked in my freezer to see if anything would jump out and bite me, and I saw bags and bags of fruit my family and I picked throughout the summer.  I spent many hours prepping the cherries, blueberries, and strawberries to freeze.  Now would be the perfect time to enjoy the ripe fruit even though it is the middle of the winter.  

My husband really likes blueberries, and I really like cherries.  I thought that combining the two fruits would make us both happy and make an amazing fruit crisp.  Now that I had a filling, I had to think about the topping.  Most of my recipes called for almond flour, but that clearly was not possible, given my lack of almond flour.  However, I had some gluten free oats in the freezer.  I decided to make my crisp with equal parts gluten free oats, butter, and brown sugar.  This is my recipe.  

Gluten Free Cherry Blueberry Crisp

Ingredients:

4 cups cherries, fresh or frozen

2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen

1/4 cup honey

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

4 tablespoons tapioca starch

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup butter, cold

3/4 cup gluten free oats

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Put the frozen cherries and frozen blueberries into a big bowl.  Add the honey, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and tapioca starch to the fruit.  Mix all of it together and put it into a greased 2 quart baking dish.  Put the brown sugar, butter and gluten free oats into a food processor.  Combine these ingredients and crumble over the fruit mixture.  Cover the Cherry Blueberry Crisp with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Uncover the Crisp and broil at 550 degrees for 5 minutes to brown.

Baker's Notes:  I used frozen fruit, because it is the wrong season for cherries and blueberries.  When you are using ripe fruit, you can likely reduce the amount of tapioca starch in half.  The food processor turned the blend of butter, oats, and brown sugar into a doughy consistency.  I crumbled it over the top of the fruit.    

This Cherry Blueberry Crisp was absolutely amazing!  I served it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Sooooo yummy!  The topping was slightly crispy, and it blended well with the fruit.  Taking a bite of warm Cherry Blueberry Crisp and cold ice cream is a definite comfort food.  Enjoy!

-Cassidy