Blueberry Brown Betty is an old fashioned blueberry crisp recipe. Serve this blueberry dessert with a big dollop of whipped cream or scoop of vanilla ice cream. If you like traditional fruit cobblers, add this one featuring fresh blueberries to your list to try.

After a day spent visiting a local blueberry patch, I have loads and loads of fresh blueberries that need used up.  I’ve been wondering what to do with fresh picked blueberries.

So I’ve been scavenging through all my old cook books, and even looking through new ones at antique stores that might possibly have an old fashioned blueberry dessert that I might like.

Blueberry Brown Betty – Old Fashioned Blueberry Crisp

And that’s exactly how I stumbled upon this Brown Betty Dessert Recipe.  I’m glad I did, because it’s everything you remember about a fruit cobbler.

The fruit is perfectly sweet, and the crisp topping is buttery good.

The combination is a match made in heaven.

Blueberry Betty Recipe

I just snagged a new cook book when I was visiting Kentucky. Well, it’s new to me, even though it was published in 1981.  It’s called The Amish Way Cook Book, and I couldn’t pass it up.

In the cook book, this old fashioned blueberry crisp was actually called simply Blueberry Betty, also known as Blueberry Brown Betty.

What is a brown betty or a betty dessert?

So you’ve heard of a crisp, crumble or cobbler, but what’s this betty dessert often seen in baking?

It’s actually very similar to a fruit crisp dessert.  The difference is that in betty or brown betty desserts, the crisp topping does not have oats.  A betty dessert topping is typically made with the combination of flour, sugar and butter.

Favorite Fruit Desserts

We love a good fruit crisp, cobbler or crumble! Whether it is peaches, apples, cherries or any type of berries, we will gladly use any and all of them in our desserts. Not sure if rhubarb is a fruit or not, but we love using it in our cobblers too! Here are some of our favorites:

• Easy Cherry Crisp
• Peach Batter Cake
• Apple Crisp
• Blackberry Batter Cake
• Rhubarb Cobbler
• Mixed Berry Dump Cake

Blueberry Crisp Ingredients

• Fresh Blueberries
• Lemon Juice (fresh, if possible)
• Salt
• Flour
• Sugar
• Butter, cold

How to Make Blueberry Crisp without oats?

Step By Step Instructions

1. In a medium bowl, add flour, sugar and cold butter.
2. Use a pastry blender, a fork, or knife, cut the cold butter into the flour and sugar until small pea-sized crumbles form; set aside.
3. Gently stir fresh blueberries, lemon juice and salt. Place in bottom of a 2 quart baking dish or 8 x 8 inch baking dish.
4. Sprinkle crumble topping evenly over top of fruit in the pan.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes.
6. If desired, serve with fresh whipped cream.

For the full ingredient amounts and instructions for fresh blueberry crisp, scroll to the recipe card at the bottom of this post.

What can I do with fresh blueberries?

Fresh blueberries are the perfect healthy snack alone or eaten with yogurt. But what else can you do with fresh blueberries? Old-Fashioned Desserts are the perfect avenue to use up large quantities of fresh-picked blueberries.  Here’s some of our favorites.

Blueberry Muffins (from Scratch)

Lemon Glazed Fresh Blueberry Cake

Blueberry Coffee Cake

Old-Fashioned Blueberry Pudding Cake

Blueberry Jello Salad

Recipe FAQs

• I prefer fresh blueberries in this old fashioned blueberry dessert, but use frozen blueberries, if desired.
• Fresh lemon juice is recommended, but using the refrigerated type works too.
• 1 lemon typically yields about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice.
• 1/2 cup butter equals 1 stick.
• Be sure to keep your butter cold before making the crumble topping.
• A pastry blender works great to cut the cold butter into the flour sugar mixture; however, if you do not have a pastry blender, try using a fork, knife or even your clean hands.

Recipe Variations

• Use other berries such as blackberries, strawberries or raspberries or make a triple berry dessert with a combination of three.
• Try swapping regular sugar with brown sugar.