Raspberry Crisp - A Simple and Easy Pudding Recipe

This is another one of my unplanned success dishes. 

I'd gotten the original idea from a Martha Stewart recipe - Blueberry Crisp. 

I hunted my town flat and the closest I came to blueberries were frozen raspberries; so I opted for Raspberry Crisp instead.

It appeared that berries in general just weren't in season in South Africa.

Below is the list of ingredients you will need should you wish to attempt this pudding:

• 6 cups of raspberries (preferably not frozen, I will explain why later)
• 1/2 cup of mixed nuts
• 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• Salt
• 6 tablespoons of unsalted butter
• 3/4 cups of all-purpose flower
• Sugar
• 1 tablespoon of Maizena
• 1 teaspoon of lemon juice

Pre-heat the oven to 175 degrees after your berries have defrosted. 

Empty the contents of raspberries into a mixing bowl along with the maizena, lemon juice and half a cup of sugar (I used a full cup - it depends on your sweet tooth). 

Mix these ingredients together until a pink mush is formed. 

Allow this mix to settle into a baking dish while you prepare your topping. 

To make the topping pour the all-purpose flour, baking powder, 1/2 a cup of chopped mixed nuts and 1/2 a teaspoon of salt into a mixing bowl. 

Mix together the unsalted butter with 1/3 sugar until resembles a fluffy dough and then add in the dry ingredients - this is where it gets fun and messy!

Using your hands, blend everything together and grab clumps of your mix to sprinkle evenly over the filling.

Now your dish is prepared, you can pop it into the oven to bake for just under an hour. 

It will bubble along the sides so don't panic if you see this happening, your goal is to get it bubbling in the middle and get the crispy topping browned.

After about half an hour I had a nosy little peak at my pies progress only to discover that the crispy topping had started to sink down into the filling - needless to say I was devastated as its not the cheapest dish to flop....

I let it finish baking - determined that no matter what, it would still taste good; and it did!

After cooling for thirty minutes, I took out my less than attractive looking concoction and dished up plates for family and friends. 

Everybody enjoyed it and it was as easy as pie :)

To dull the rich berry flavours I paired it with scrumptious vanilla ice cream.

What I Did Wrong:

I was supposed to use no more than an 8inch baking dish and my dish was enormous (couldn't have been helped...)

Raspberries go mushy when you defrost them so if you can get your hands on blueberries that would be more advisable. 

Upon researching about why my dish flopped, a friend of mine that just so happens to be a great baker let me know that it was more than likely the water from freezing them that contributed greatly to its failure.  

Find her mouth-watering foodie blog here:

www.thehungrydesigner.co.za

Although it did not turn out as planned or look like this -->

It was still pretty good.