Oh, Colorado, You Do Fruit So Well August 11 2016

This is a sweet treat to celebrate. Put your feet up and enjoy a crisp on one of these refreshing summer evenings, and experience how lucky we are to have all this amazing fruit in Colorado. 

This week's dessert is all about showing off our summer fruit from Ela Family Farms, including one you may be less familiar with - the Shiro Plum.

This plum is greenish-yellow fruit, just about the size of a roundish egg, has a firmer flesh and is more plum than sweet in its flavor.

The Shiro Plum is just one of many hybrids created by American Luther Burbank beginning when he imported 12 plum trees to the US in1885. This man is pretty much responsible for plums as we know them here, and most started from his experimentation with a Japanese varieties that grew wild in Japan and were pickled by the natives or eaten. More on plum history here. 

Shiro plums complement the over-the-top sweet peaches just bursting with juicy goodness.  The plums keep their texture and add body and a more complex flavor to the crisp while the peaches and a little drizzle of Colorado honey make the crisp more dessert-like. 

Then for the color and flavor and just because we love them, we're throwing in a few of the cherries we preserved last month to round out the whole deal. 

Topped with our Paleo crust of organic dates and toasted nuts tossed with fragrant cinnamon and bright lemon zest, baked until bubbly and delicious and the nuts are a luscious golden brown.... you can't resist.