Yesterday for Sunday Company Dinner, I simply had to do something with blueberries. My supply is sadly dwindling, but I so wanted to share the luscious bounty with our closest friends. My first thoughts really dwelled on the pie from the other day. However, it was Sunday, it was hot and slightly muggy out, but not quite hot enough to turn on the AC- it was close, very close, and had I opted to make pie, the windows would have been shut and the AC turned on. So I opted to spend some time flipping through my cookbooks, looking for the perfect blueberry recipe. I thought a crisp or a crumble sounded particularly appealing, but as I’d already been to the store twice, I couldn’t bear the thought of running one more time for the requisite nuts.
By the way, do you know the difference between a crisp and a crumble? The crumble usually has oatmeal in the topping, where a crisp doesn’t- and because the crisp doesn’t have the oatmeal in it it gets, well, crispy. I prefer both with nuts though, and since I was out of nuts for baking, I plodded on, reading through recipes, looking for something that would spare me a trip to the store. I found my recipe in King Arthur Flour’s All-Purpose Baking Book- a Blueberry Slump.
What is a slump? A slump or a grunt are usually some form of a fruit-syrup concoction onto which dumplings are dropped, and then subsequently steamed for a delicious, fruity dumpling dessert. Technically, the terms grunt and slump are interchangeable, but I found that in the King Arthur book anyway, the grunts are cooked stove-top and steamed, where the blueberry slump was baked- resulting in a crispy-topped dumpling. This was the recipe for me. My changes would be to use non-dairy ingredients, so I used some Buttery Sticks, as well as vanilla almond milk instead of regular milk. That’s what I had on hand and open- I’m sure any other alternative milk would work just fine here.
The first step was to melt some butter in my baking dish. Then I topped that with my washed blueberries. Next, I made the dumpling dough, using the butter alternative, as well as the almond milk. I did find, as I mixed the dough together that 3/4 of a cup wasn’t quite enough, so I added another tablespoon of the almond milk to help it come together. Once the dough was ready, I dropped it in walnut-sized dollops all over the blueberries. Lastly, a simple sugar syrup was made with brown sugar, water, nutmeg, allspice and lemon juice, and then drizzled all over the top. I popped the whole thing in the oven and about 45 minutes later I had a gorgeous, golden brown, blueberry filled slump. It was delicious. The spices in the syrup added the tiniest hint of warmth to the sweet berries, and the crispy dumpling topping was perfect. I think the vanilla almond milk worked perfectly- and added a bit of vanilla as well. If I made this with regular milk, I think I would consider adding a 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla, because it really added to it. I served it with dairy-free whipped topping, but ice cream with warm slump would have been spectacular.
In addition to being a winner with company, this recipe is also the first one that I have chosen to add to the group website Key Ingredient. A few weeks ago I received an invitation to join this food community, and I’m finally remembering to do so. I’m very impressed with the layout and design at Key Ingredient, and so far, I find it very easy to use. In addition, it’s extremely easy to use and browse around for a recipe. They’re also running a berry contest for the month of July, and since this recipe was so delicious, I thought it was the perfect one to enter in. Check out Key Ingredient when you have a chance- it’s one of those communities that will only improve the more people join in.
Blueberry Slump
from King Arthur Flour’s All-Purpose Baking Book
*Note: Non-dairy buttery sticks and almond milk work fantastic in this recipe to make a non-dairy variation.
Preheat the oven to 350ºF.
For the syrup: Place the 4 tablespoons of butter in a 9 x 13 baking dish and place in the oven to melt the butter. In a small saucepan, warm the water, brown sugar, spices and lemon juice over low heat until the sugar dissolves.
For the dumplings: Put the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium sized mixing bowl and rub in the butter with your fingertips, a pastry blender, or two knives. Pour in the milk and stir together until you have a shaggy dough.
To assemble: Pour the blueberries into the baking dish on top of the melted butter. Place blobs of dumpling dough on top of the blueberries and then pour the syrup all over the top. Do not stir together. Bake the slump for 40-45 minutes, or until the biscuits are golden and the mixture is bubbly. Serve the slump warm.
Makes 12-15 servings.
I have contemplated making this recipe so many times – I am happy to see a review of it! I think I will need to try it out with my next bounty of blueberries (I hope to pick sometime this week).
Delightful post! I went right to Key Ingredient & looked up your recipe, too. I finished up the last of my blueberries by eating them straight out of the fridge 🙂
Josie, I loved it. And unlike cobblers, I found it to be just as delicious today- even better actually. The only thing about eating it today is that the dumplings are no longer crispy- but they seem to have developed more flavor overnight.
Thanks JEP- I’m really debating what to do with the last of the blueberries. There would be enough for one more pie…or I could freeze them, but most likely, yeah, we’ll just be eating them.
JEP- Key ingredient would be fantastic for the non-blogger as a way to store recipes online. Putting in a recipe was really easy and it was up in a matter of seconds.
I make a blueberry crisp quite often–and apparently it is a crumble. Who knew?
This looks great–I love these kinds of blueberry desserts, especially with haagen daaz vanilla bean ice cream. Yum.