Ingredients
Method
- Preheat your oven to 375°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with butter or nonstick cooking spray.
- Mix the filling: In a large bowl, toss together the sliced apples and blackberries. Stir in the sugar, lemon juice, cornstarch, cinnamon, and salt until everything is evenly coated. Spread into your prepared baking dish.
- Make the topping: In another bowl, whisk together the polenta, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Use a pastry cutter or two forks to work in the cold butter until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces of butter visible—this is where you'll get the crumbly texture.
- Add liquid: Pour in the milk and vanilla, stirring just until the dough comes together. It should be a bit shaggy—not fully smooth; that's fine.
- Assemble: Drop spoonfuls of topping over the fruit mixture. Don't spread it out evenly—letting some mounds peek through creates nice pockets for berries to bubble up later. Sprinkle any remaining butter cubes on top if you have them.
- Bake: Place in the oven and bake for 45–50 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean (not wet with batter). The fruit should be tender when pierced with a fork—about 12 on a scale of 1 to 10.
- Cool slightly: Let sit for 10 minutes before serving so the filling can set just enough. Serve warm with cream or ice cream if desired.
Nutrition
Notes
The dish comes together in about twenty minutes before the oven does its work, which makes it easy to pull out when you're tired but still want something special on the plate. The key is using a mix of apple varieties—Granny Smith with Honeycrisp gives me that tangy-sweet balance without turning mushy—and not skimping on the butter on top.
I usually serve it warm with just a spoonful of heavy cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream melted slightly in the heat. It keeps well for three days, though I'll admit mine rarely lasts that long because the crumbly polenta topping is too good to wait on.