Strawberry Crisp

As strawberry season comes to an end and cherry season begins, I bought one last batch of strawberries to use for dessert. Initially, I found a recipe by Barefoot Contessa on Foodnetwork.com for strawberry rhubarb crisp but couldn’t find any rhubarb at the store so I modified it to strawbery and blackberry crisp. The great thing about crisps is that you can pretty much use any kind of fruit that you want.

A crisp is a mixture of fruit that is topped with a crumb topping usually containting butter, brown sugar and oats. This recipe called for orange juice and orange rind which I thought would be a nice compliment to the strawberry and a flavor I had never thought to use in a crisp before.

Start by hulling and slicing the strawberries and wash the blackberries. Mix the fruit with the sugar and orange zest.

Whisk the cornstarch and orange juice together until the cornstarch is completely dissolved.

Pour it over the fruit and set aside while mixing up the topping.

Use chilled butter straight from the fridge buuret cut it up into cubes. Mix the topping in an elecrtic mixer with the paddle attachment. Combine the flour, sugar, brown sugar, oats and salt in the mixer bowl and then with the paddle on the slowest speed, slowly add the butter until the mixture is granular and looks crumbly. Keep an eye on it, it will mix quickly; I left mine on too long, mixed it too much and it turned into more of a dough. It still tastes great, but is harder to sprinkle evenly on the top of the fruit.

Once the topping is ready, place the fruit in a large baking dish or small individual size ramkins and top evenly with the topping mixture.

Place the baking dish(s) on a baking sheet to catch any juices that bubble over and protect the bottom of your oven.

Bake for one hour at 350 degrees until the fruit is bubbling and the top is golden brown. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream. Crisp is best served the day it is made, if it sits over night the crisp will get soggy. I forgot to take an after picture so here is the one from the recipe on Foodnetwork.com.

I loved the orange addition but might use less of the orange juice next time, it was very runny.

Here is the recipe from Foodnetwork.com: 

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

Ingredients

4 cups fresh rhubarb, 1-inch diced (4 to 5 stalks)

4 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and halved, if large

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange zest

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup quick-cooking (not instant) oatmeal, such as McCann’s

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced

Vanilla ice cream, for serving