Late fall is huckleberry time on the coast. Long after the summer berries are gone, evergreen huckleberries hang on the bush in dark, glossy clusters, and they often taste sweeter after the first frosts. This year we wanted a dessert that tastes like the Northwest forest itself, so we built one almost entirely from plants we grow: tart huckleberries, a toasted hazelnut and pine nut crumble, and sugar perfumed with Douglas-fir needles.
Fir needles might sound like an odd thing to put in a dessert, but fresh Douglas-fir tastes bright and citrusy rather than piney, a little like lemon zest with a hint of resin. It lifts the jammy berries the same way a squeeze of lemon would. The topping uses ground hazelnuts and oats instead of flour, so the whole crisp is naturally gluten-free.
Douglas-Fir Huckleberry Crisp with Hazelnut-Pinyon Crumble
Serves 8 · Gluten-free · 9-inch pie or baking dish
Fir sugar
- 2/3 cup sugar (white, or coconut sugar; see notes)
- 3 tbsp fresh Douglas-fir needles or spring tips, rinsed (4 tbsp if using coconut sugar)
Filling
- 5 cups huckleberries (about 1 1/2 lb), fresh or frozen
- 2 1/2 tbsp cornstarch (3 tbsp for frozen or blue huckleberries)
- 1 lemon, zested and juiced (use half for sweeter blue huckleberries)
- 1/4 tsp salt
Crumble
- 1 cup hazelnuts, toasted and skinned
- 3/4 cup gluten-free rolled oats
- 1/3 cup pine nuts (pinyon if you have them)
- 1/2 cup brown sugar or coconut sugar, packed
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 6 tbsp cold butter, cubed
Instructions
- Make the fir sugar. Pulse the sugar and fir needles in a food processor for about a minute, until pale green and fragrant. Sift out the fibrous bits. Set aside 1 tablespoon for the top.
- Heat the oven to 375°F and butter your dish.
- Mix the filling. Toss the huckleberries with the fir sugar, cornstarch, lemon zest and juice, and salt. Spread in the dish. If your berries are frozen, don't thaw them.
- Make the crumble. Pulse the hazelnuts until coarse, like gravel with a little flour. Mix with the oats, pine nuts, sugar and salt, then rub in the butter with your fingers until it forms clumps.
- Scatter the crumble over the berries and sprinkle with the reserved fir sugar.
- Bake 40 to 45 minutes, until the juice bubbles thickly at the edges and the top is deep golden. Add about 15 minutes if the berries were frozen.
- Let it cool at least 30 minutes so the filling sets. Serve with cream or vanilla ice cream.
Notes
- Use the right needles. Douglas-fir, grand fir and spruce are all safe and delicious. Never use yew, which looks similar and is toxic, and skip ponderosa pine needles.
- Coconut sugar works 1:1, but its caramel flavor competes with the fir. For the strongest fir flavor, use white sugar in the fir sugar and coconut sugar in the crumble.
- Which huckleberry? Evergreen huckleberries are firm and tart, so use the full amount of sugar. Black (mountain) huckleberries are sweeter and more aromatic, so taste and cut back. Red huckleberries are tart and bright; try them half and half with a darker berry.
- Want some green? The filling bakes up deep purple, so sprinkle a little fresh fir sugar on top after baking.
- Variations: swap a cup of the berries for salal, add a few crushed juniper berries to the fir sugar, or finish with a drizzle of bigleaf maple syrup.
Picking evergreen huckleberries
Evergreen huckleberries ripen from late summer into early winter. Rather than picking one berry at a time, rake your fingers gently through the clusters into a bucket. To clean them, pour the berries slowly from one bowl into another in front of a fan or a breeze to blow away leaves, then pick out any stems. Five cups takes about half an hour to an hour on a well-loaded bush, and extras freeze beautifully spread on a tray before bagging.
Grow your own crisp
Nearly everything in this recipe can come from your own garden:
- Evergreen Huckleberry: a handsome, shade-tolerant evergreen shrub with fruit into winter
- Black Huckleberry: the classic mountain huckleberry
- Red Huckleberry: tart, bright berries, at home on old stumps
- California Hazelnut: our native hazelnut for the crumble
- Pinyon Pine: the original pine nut
- Salal: for the salal variation
If you bake this, we'd love to see it. Tag us or send us a photo!