Warm and Tasty Crisp Made With Canned Fruit

1. Gather the ingredients.

2. Heat the oven to 425 F.

3. Lightly grease an 8- or 9-inch-square glass pan. Pour fruit into the pan.

4. In a small bowl, combine oatmeal, flour, nuts, and melted butter. Add the optional tablespoon of sugar if desired, and stir to combine well and until the topping clumps together. Sprinkle over the fruit.

5. Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown (longer if you have doubled or tripled the recipe). Remove from the oven and serve warm on its own or with sweetened whipped cream or ice cream.

6. Remove from the oven when the topping is golden brown and serve warm on its own or with sweetened whipped cream or ice cream.

Note: Most canned fruits will work. You can add spices that marry well with the type of fruit and packaged oatmeal you've chosen to use. If the instant oatmeal is unsweetened, adding sugar to taste will give the topping a better flavor.

Cobbler, Crisp, and Crumble Differences

All three of these down-home desserts are made with fresh, frozen, or canned fruit and baked with a sweet topping—biscuits, pastry dough, butter streusel with or without oatmeal. The name for these simple, delicious meal-enders vary by region but, in general, these definitions hold true.

Cobblers: These desserts have either a dropped biscuit, pastry dough, cake batter, or cookie dough topping over the fruit. The appearance of the biscuits or pieces of patched pastry dough gave it a cobbled look and the name stuck. 

Crumbles: The fruit in a crumble is topped with a streusel made with butter, sugar, and a little flour that is mixed together with the tips of the fingers until a crumble forms (and hence its name).

Crisps: The difference in this topping lies in the use of oatmeal in place of the flour used in a streusel. As the dessert bakes, the oats in the topping crisp up and that's how it got its name.