A crumble is the easiest pie on earth — no crust — just a crumbly, crunchy, heavenly mixture of brown sugar, butter, oats, and cinnamon, blanketing sweet-yet-tart cherries bubbling underneath.

Tips and Tricks

• When fresh cherries aren’t in season, you can use canned or frozen and no one will be the wiser.

• To intensify the cherry flavor, we suggest adding a handful of dried fruit, a winter pie-baking trick we borrowed from early Smoky Mountain cooks who would dry fruits in season to use throughout the year.

• This rustic dessert is made for serving in bowls, hot from the oven, with hefty scoops of vanilla bean-flecked ice cream.