This olive oil cake has a hint of orange zest and five-spice powder and is only mildly sweet. If you don’t eat it all the first day, slice it into cubes and top toast with honey or whipped cream and orange slices.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 40 mins |
| Additional Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 25 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 1 2-quart baking dish |
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ cup white sugar
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
- ¾ cup frozen unsalted butter
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar, or as needed
- 1 cup blueberries
- 1 cup raspberries
- 1 cup blackberries
- ⅓ cup white sugar
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
- Make crumble: Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Whisk until thoroughly combined. Grate in frozen butter, stopping occasionally to toss butter into flour mixture until coated.
- Stir in egg yolks and vanilla with a fork until egg is mostly absorbed. Add 1 teaspoon vinegar; mix briefly. Use your hands to finish mixing, squeezing until clumps form, but mixture remains mostly dry. Add more vinegar if needed. Set crumble aside.
- Make filling: Combine blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries in another large bowl. Add sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, lemon zest, and cayenne pepper. Mix until well combined and sugar and cornstarch are mostly dissolved.
- Place about 1/2 of the crumble mixture into the bottom of a 2-quart baking dish. Press mixture down using a flat cup until well compacted. Spread berry filling on top. Sprinkle remaining crumble mixture over berries, squeezing some of the crumble into clumps.
- Bake in the preheated oven until top is beautifully browned and berry filling bubbles, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool to room temperature before serving, about 30 minutes.
- You can use self-rising flour and skip the combination of all-purpose flour, salt, and baking powder.
- Use any variety of berries; ripe peaches and other summer stone fruit would also be fantastic. You can use frozen berries, which are much juicier, so keep that in mind when making cornstarch-related decisions.
- If you want a pie-like filling, you’ll want to toss in about 1 to 4 teaspoons cornstarch; for a runnier fruit mixture, use 1 teaspoon cornstarch or leave it out altogether.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 416 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 58 g |
| Cholesterol | 97 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 3 g |
| Protein | 5 g |
| Saturated Fat | 11 g |
| Sodium | 124 mg |
| Sugars | 31 g |
| Fat | 19 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I used peaches instead of the blackberries. Smelled wonderful in the oven. I added nutmeg to the dough for added flavor; that was the only change other than the peaches. Excellent recipe. Thank you!
I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-free flour mix as I needed to make a GF version. Took it to Bookclub. Rave reviews all around. Definitely a keeper. Will be making again
This was the perfect paring of sweet, tart and buttery with a wonderful texture to the crust/crumble! I used blueberries, strawberries and homegrown raspberries and followed the recipe exactly as illustrated in the video. I do not understand how any of the reviewers could say the crust/crumble had no flavor-my only thought is that they are not baking with European style cultured butter which I learned is a game changer when it comes to flavor! I’ll never bake with anything else. This recipe was delish and ‘company worthy’ by my rating scale-thank you Chef John.
Perfect sweetness and tartness
Great recipe, photo of first time success! I use brown sugar and wholemeal flour instead. I stick to the lemon juice, apple vinegar and cayenne pepper which combine to give really flavorful tang. I mixed coconut chips to the crumble on top. Thank you for such a wonderful crumble recipe
I used all raspberries in this dish – many batches harvested and frozen last summer. Since the frozen berries were pretty juicy, I used 1T of cornstarch, and that seemed to create a nice not-too-runny filling. The next time I make this, I’ll use at least another cup of berries because with the crumble part on both the top and bottom, the ratio of fruit to crumble was a little too low.
This Berry Crumble was exactly what it was stated, it was amazing & the ultimately the best I had ever tasted. Thank you, Chef John! I followed the instructions, but I did substitute the vanilla extract for a tps of ginger, amazing. The apple cider vinegar & the pinch of cayenne pepper, I would never have thought would enhance the favor as it did. & the berries come out more than prefect then I thought, I did use 3-4 tps of the cornstarch for body. What a winner & so delicious.
Perfect recipe instructions and the video tutorial helped. Made it for my family for Mother’s Day Yum!
So delicious! This might be the best pie I ever ate. Followed the recipe closely since it was my first time making it, although I didn’t have unsalted butter, used salted butter & no extra salt instead. Used a 9 1/2″ deep-dish pie pan with raspberries, blueberries, & blackberries. I had an extra 1/2c or so of berries after rinsing them, so threw them in – glad I did. It made a nice single layer in the pan. After splitting the dough in half & sprinkling it on top, I had extra dough (?). I didn’t have any overflow after it started to bubble, another 5 minutes to brown the top, then removed it. The 2t of cornstarch worked for me, I was able to slice it like a pie. So glad I tried the recipe. Next time I make it, I will be more generous with the crust/crumble & buttering the pan. Excellent!! As they say, a definite keeper :>)
This was one of my staple desserts when I was a chef down in Lakeview Oregon a couple of years ago. I was told by at least over 85% of our customers that was the best dessert they’ve ever had. Thanks Chef John, love your program and insight to food
I made it already 20 times, at least. A really nice recipe. Since I don’t always have all three types of berries suggested by Chef John, sometimes I replace some two by plums or a grated apple. This works out fine, though I would not skip raspberries. Also, the short cut of using self-raising flour (without salt and baking powder) works well, unless you confuse it with the usual flour…
This just did not taste good. I followed recipe exactly. I’m a frequent baker as well. But the crumb was tasteless.
I made this last night as my husband has been reminding me that we need to use up the berries in the freezer. I followed the recipe exactly as is, without any changes, except that I cut it in half. I also topped it with homemade whipping cream. It was super delicious! I only have one thing to say to those people that omitted the pinch of cayenne pepper…DON’T! It’s very subtle but just what it needed to give it a little extra punch of flavor! I’ll definitely make it again! (My husband made sure I saved it!) ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
What a terrific recipe! It is so easy and so good. A steady supply of berries of all sorts has had me looking for some good and easy recipes and this recipe is it. I sometime half the crumble recipe and it is still wonderful.
Great recipe, turned out delicious!
This Berry Crumble is beyond ultimate. I followed the directions, except I left out the cayenne. I also followed the instructions that Chef John gave on the video. This recipe is a keeper, for sure!
This recipe is a great base for the crumble (as I like a bottom to my crumble). It’s definitely does not have enough fruit though and I’m not a huge fan of tons of fruit in my crumbles. 3 cups seemed to skimpy compared to the amount of crumble when you mixed it up. I doubled the filling amount (6 cups, double lemon juice, double sugar etc). I also Replaced the white sugar with brown sugar in the crumble and added a dash of cinnamon. I Replaced brown butter in place of the regular butter (I use 1 cup brown butter as you tend to loose some butter when you brown it (brown then freeze, don’t use hot melted brown butter) . I also added oats to the second half of the crumble (maybe 1/4-1/2 cup. I also add enough vinegar to make it more wet). You can replace the 6 cups fruit with any variety you want. I’ve done peach blueberry strawberry. Apple raspberry and blueberry etc. it’s absolutely divine the way I’ve altered it! I highly recommend trying it my way as brown butter is life! Even if you don’t want brown butter as the comments suggested double the fruit amount. I’ve made it like 5 times now my way lol. I like my crumble crispy so I turned on the Broiler for a second too.
I added cinnamon rather than cayenne. One of the best desserts I’ve ever had. In fact, we are having it as our dinner tonight.
Ok, I have to admit then when searching for a crumble recipe, the word “ultimate” grabbed me and so I made it after reading the reviews. It was easy and straight forward. I watched the video as I went along….I added 1/4 cup brown sugar to a half cup of white, added a bit more cornstarch as I had more than the required berries. I used a box cheese grater and had NO problem at all getting butter curls that looked just like Chef John’s. I wish someone had mentioned in reviews about making it a day ahead as I’m not sure whether I should warm it up before serving, keep it in the fridge overnight, or just cross my fingers that when I serve it tomorrow with vanilla ice cream it will be the “birthday cake” my daughter dreamed of! I might add another review after the crumble has baked…..if my husband and I don’t eat it tonight!
This is the BEST recipe for berry crumble! I’m making for the second time in two weeks and I’m using all blackberries.
Doubled up for a 9×13 pan and I did a crisp topping. Great recipe filing and crust.