Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

I love making crisps; if I were to have a “signature dessert” it would be crisps.  I make them so much because they taste great with the fruit and brown sugar combination, crispy topping, and fruity bottom and they are so easy.  I’ve never really exactly followed a crisp recipe, but if I did, it would be the one in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison.  By the way, I highly recommend that cookbook.  It is filled with lots of great information, tons of inspiration, and everything uses real foods.  I’m not a vegetarian, but her cookbook can be used for side dishes, meatless main dishes (for those of you, who like me frequently have “Meatless Meals” or days), and everything tastes great.

Crisps are great all year round.  Any kind of fruit can be put inside to make them suitable for spring (rhubarb and strawberries, tada!) to fall and winter (apple crisp, anyone?).  This recipe will work for all seasons and all fruits with a little bit of know how – really juicy fruits will benefit from the addition of some sort of a starch such as flour or tapioca in the filling to help hold it together a little bit, and the sweeter the fruit, the less sugar you need.

Strawberry season is in full force here in the northeast.  Almost every stand at the farmer’s market has pints lined up, and more to replace the ones that are purchased.  Rhubarbs are still hanging on, as they will until the weather gets too hot for them in another month or so.  I never grew up eating strawberry and rhubarb in combination, but it seems it is a classic, so I made it into a crisp.

This post is submitted to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, Tasty Tuesday and Real Food Wednesday.

Here is how I make a Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp.  Here are the ingredients for a 7×11 in baking dish:

• Rhubarb (about 4-5 stalks)
• Strawberries (about half a pint)
• ~1/2 cup Unrefined sugar such as sucanat, rapadura, or evaporated cane juice
• 6 tablespoons Unsalted butter (grass fed)
• 3/4 cup Unrefined sugar (see above)
• 1 tablespoon Molasses
• 2/3 cup Sprouted flour
• 1/2 cup Rolled oats
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Strawberries and rhubarb in the pan

Now this is what I do.  I chop up enough strawberries and rhubarb to fill my baking pan (about half strawberries, half rhubarb.  If you use more strawberries, you will need to add a little starch to the strawberry rhubarb mix to prevent it from getting too soupy and less sugar since strawberries will provide more sweetness).  Right now I’m using a pyrex baking sheet about 7 in x 11 in.  That was about 1/2 a pint of (whole) strawberries and about 5 stalks of rhubarb.  I put them in the baking dish and sprinkled half a cup of sugar over the top and mixed it in well.  Then set it aside.  Remember, feel free to use less sugar if the fruit is sweet enough on its own, or if you like the tartness of the rhubarb.  I wouldn’t want to add more sugar unless you were using a bigger pan.  Trust me, a crisp is not as good when it is overly sweet.  Plus, sugar is something you should only eat in moderation.

Now for the crisp topping.  I like a LOT of topping.  You might like less.  Play with the amount you put on your crisp until you find something you like.  This makes enough to cover my 7×11 baking dish.

In a separate small bowl, combine the 3/4 cup of sugar and 1 tablespoon of molasses.  You can use a fork to cut them together really well.  Now, put that in a big bowl along with the oats, sprouted flour, butter (cut into smaller chunks), salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.   Now – don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty!  Stir it up, mush it up using your hands.  Mix it until it is a crumbly texture.

Put that over the top of the strawberries and rhubarb, then bake in a preheated oven at 375 for about 45-60 minutes.

The crisp right before baking

A piece of rhubarb buckle

At the farmer’s market I bought a few pounds of rhubarb.  Normally, I would make a crisp, but since I had so much rhubarb, I thought I’d try something else first.  Enter the buckle.

A buckle is a dessert from the colonial times.  It is related to the crisps, cobblers, and brown bettys.    A cake-like batter is made with fresh fruit folded into it, and then a lovely crumble topping it added to the top of the batter just before baking.  It is essentially the marriage of a cake and a crisp.

The buckle turned out very well: a delicious large crumbed cake filled with bits of tart rhubarb and topped with a buttery crumble.  For my recipe I used sucanat for the crumble topping and as half of the sugar in the cake.  Sucanat retains more of the nutrition found in sugar cane, so it isn’t all empty calories like refined white sugar.  It also has a richer flavor, similar to molasses.  It works really well for this type of recipe.  Don’t be fooled though, sugar is still sugar and this is just a treat!

Here is my recipe, inspired by The Washington Post.

Crumble Topping
1/3 cup sucanat or rapadura
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Cake
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
scant 1/2  cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup sucanat or rapadura
2 eggs
¾ cup soured milk, at room temperature (can substitute kefir, yogurt, buttermilk, or fresh milk + lemon juice or vinegar if you do not have raw sour milk)
1 pound rhubarb, trimmed and thinly sliced (about 2 ½ cups, or 5 stalks)

Make the topping first.  Mix all the ingredients together, then put it in the freezer so it won’t melt into the batter when you bake it.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  To make the cake, sift the flour, baking powder, ginger, baking soda and salt together in a large mixing bowl.  In a separate bowl, cream the sugars and butter together.  I did this by hand, but a mixer will obviously make it easier.  Add the egg and mix each one in before adding the other.  Then add the soured milk.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mix and then fold in the rhubarb in.  Pour into a greased 9×9 baking dish, sprinkle the frozen crumb topping over the top, and bake for 45-50 minutes.