A Blueberry Grunt

Heating up the oven is about the last thing I want to do on a 90 degree day, especially with the air conditioner running full blast, and the SCARY electric bill we got last month. Still there’s all this summer fruit, and sometimes, you need a crumble. Or crisp, cobbler or buckle. Or a betty or a grunt.

A grunt is a like a cobbler, but it’s made on the stovetop. Sweet holy dumplings!

Here's the recipe:

Filling
about 3 pints of blueberries
1 c. sugar (plus 1 teaspoon)
1 lemon
1 t. cinnamon

Batter
½ stick of butter
2/3 c. buttermilk
1 t. vanilla
2 c. flour
1 t. baking powder
½ t. baking soda
½ t. salt

Start 2 with pints of blueberries in a dutch oven or large saucepan. Add about a half cup of sugar, along with the zest and juice of one lemon, and a half teaspoon of cinnamon. Cook on medium heat, stirring occassionally until it resembles jam. Then add a least another pint of fresh blueberries, remove from heat.

Melt a half stick of butter, and mix it with 2/3 cup of buttermilk and 1 tsp. vanilla. (make sure the buttermilk is room temp. when you combine it, otherwise the butter will solidify again!)

Mix 2 cups of flour, a half cup of sugar, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, a half teaspoon of baking soda, and a half teaspoon of salt. Stir in the buttermilk mixture until a dough forms.

Using a large spoon or ice cream scoop, place dumplings on top of the fruit.

Simmer 20 minutes until dumplings double in size, and toothpick comes out clean. Sprinkle with another 1/2 t. of cinnamon combined with a teaspoon of sugar and serve.

Furthermore:
Betty – fruit is topped by buttered crumbs and baked
Buckle- cake-like bottom with berries mixed in, crumble on top
Clafouti – fruit is topped with cake or pudding and baked
Cobbler – fruit is covered by a biscuit-like dough and baked
Crisp – similar to a crumble, but with a crunchier topping
Crumble – topping is sprinkled over fruit in a pan and baked
Crostata – similar to a one-crust pie, but the dough is folded around the fruit
Pandowdy – a rolled-out dough is baked on top of fruit
Pie – fruit inside a baked crust
Slump –same as a grunt
Slap – pureed fruit used as a facial scrub (kidding, I made that one up.)

Names for these desserts can vary regionally. What’s the most popular one where you are?