I can’t give up dessert entirely, but I’m working on making it higher in fruit and lower in carbs & fats. Here’s my minimalist blueberry crumble, designed to be lean(er) but have the texture and taste of the good stuff. You can’t do away with things like flour and butter entirely, but you can certainly minimize them.
Minimalist Blueberry Crumble
- 4 cups blueberries
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 3 tablespoons agave nectar (or honey, maple syrup, or sugar—agave has a lower glycemic index); you might have to adjust this depending on how sweet your berries are
- 1/4 cup whole wheat or white whole wheat flour
- 1/4 cup powdered honey or granulated maple syrup, or 1/3 cup brown sugar
- a pinch of salt
- 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1/3 cup chopped pecans
- 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, melted*
Preheat oven to 375 F.
Stir the blueberries, lemon juice, and agave nectar together. Pour into a greased 8 x 8 inch pan.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, oats, and pecans. Add the melted butter and mix with a fork until thoroughly combined. Scatter across the top of the blueberries.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown and the blueberries are bubbly. Cool for at least 5 minutes and enjoy!
If you feel the need to add ice cream when this is hot out of the oven, I recommend Breyers French Vanilla. It has about half the sugar of other good-quality ice creams I’ve tried, and it’s really good.
*This amount of butter is the bare minimum I could use and get the whole topping moistened. If your amounts are slightly off and your mix seems dry, add another tablespoon of melted butter.
You may feel free to experiment with this further with, say, raspberries or cranberries, when I next visit.
I will keep that in mind. 🙂
Crumble is a great recipe that can be used with really any berry type fruit, another one well worth trying and my favourite is rhubarb when it comes into season.
“… designed to be lean(er) but have the texture and taste of the good stuff.”
I am glad to have found your recipe. My wife absolutely LOVES blueberries, loves to bake, but is also a fitness guru. She’s forever trying to find ways to make yummy desserts that are also lower in fat-factor and healthier (and so am I). I’ll pass this on to her and she will be one happy camper 😉 Thanks.
Thanks for posting this recipe. At our house, we are big fans of healthy, natural eating and we’re always happy to find new goodies that both taste good and are good for you. As a man, I’m very interested in the health benefits of blueberries — and I like delicious desserts, too. I have to say that I’ve never heard of powdered honey before. Where can you get that?
I got my powdered honey from the Bee Folks (beefolks.com); I’m guessing other apiaries might carry it as well.
Hi,
I have never been a fan of healthy option deserts the cooks tend too go to far in that direction, so it is nice to see you did not do away with the butter altogether.
Nice recipe, love the addition of oats.
All the best
MPW
Jillian—oooh, now I need to make a berry/rhubarb crumble.
Desert don;t have to be that harmful to our bodies. I sometimes eat grapes or bananas and think wow this tastes better than any desert packed with carbohydrates and refined sugar. Good job using the fruits natural sugary flavour in your recipe.Not only is it healthier, I am sure it tastes great too. And thank you for sharing the recipe.
Blueberries! They are just my favorite fruit on earth. Don’t you just love its flavor and the way it adds jazz to cupcakes, pancakes and smoothies? Thanks for sharing your recipe for blueberry crumble.
This recipe is certainly a great one, good to encourage the kids to eat more fruit. I have a blueberry muffin recipe which is totally sugar free but the muffins are still moist and delicious (although I must admit I add a few table spoons of splenda to the batter mixture!)
Awesome dessert. thank you !
I have just made this minimalist blueberry crumble. My family was highly elated about this dessert. We like this kind of natural eating. Thanks for sharing it!
This recipe looks amazing! I am going to use this for my mothers day dessert. Cheers!
This is a healthy recipe…I like blueberries. Thanks for sharing this.
This recipe is amazing. Not too hard to follow . I’m not one to stray from the recipe, so I’m usually hopeful at the outcome, and so far I’ve not been disappointed. I needed a dessert and I had blueberries and so I found the Blueberry Crumb Pie recipe and made it on the fly. It was so delicious.
I tried the recipe both with and without oats. The oats definitely lend it the right texture. Really enjoyed the desserts of my hard work in the kitchen.
Thanks for this recipe.
I, too, have this constant hunger for desserts. I must say that instructions seems easy to follow and the ingredients are easy to find. I would try to make one next weekend.
Just one suggestion: it could be wonderful if you posted an image of the end-product. But anyway, thanks a lot.