While I have long cooked with herbs, I am relatively new to cooking with lavender. Not one to be easily intimidated in the kitchen, lavender intimidates me.
Remember this, more so with lavender than any other herb…
A little goes a long way.
More is not better. Ever.
When in doubt, error on the side of caution. (Add a bit at first, then taste and increase if desired.)
Blueberry-peach lavender crisp is one of the first lavender dishes I attempted. After all – Fresh blueberries. Fresh peaches. Crispy topping. Not much can go wrong with that.
Blueberry-peach lavender crisp
For fruit:
4 cups fresh peaches, peeled and sliced
1 cup fresh blueberries
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon dried culinary lavender buds
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
For the topping:
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/3 packed brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter
Instructions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
In a food processor, mix the lavender and sugar and pulse until lavender is infused in the sugar. In a bowl, mix together blueberries, peaches, sugar and cornstarch.
Pour fruit into an 8×8 baking pan.
Reusing same bowl from fruit, mix together oats, flour and brown sugar. Melt butter and add to the flour mixture and combine with a fork until mixture resembles coarse crumbles.
Spread topping mix over fruit.
Bake 25-30 minutes, or until top is lightly golden brown.
My recipe edits:
For the picture above, I had less peaches and more blueberries than called for, but used five cups total of fresh fruit. Also, the blueberries were farm fresh, very large and juicy. The fruit portion is bluer than it would be normally.
I use gluten-free flour and gluten-friendly oats in this recipe, in the same quantities.
the melodious garden 