Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

mare_strawberry_and_rhubarb_crumble_vThis was not my crumble because I forgot to take a photo.  Yet I am writing about it because I learned many lessons.  I looked at a bunch of recipes and opted for one that had oats in the topping.  I decided that I should double the whole thing because I went with a bigger pan.  That was ok and it wasn’t ok.

Here is what I did.

1 1/2 cups flour (1 cup would have been fine)

1 1/3 cups white sugar plus another cup (1 cup here too is better)

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter chopped into pieces (cold)

1 cup of old fashioned oats (3/4 is better too)

4 pints of strawberries cut in half

8 pieces of rhubarb sliced into small pieces

1 tbsp. vanilla

I used a 15 x 10″ pyrex (either sprayed with an olive oil spray or buttered)

Preheat the oven to 375.

Mix together the flour and butter until it is like you are making a crust for a pie.  I did not do that and tossed in the oats, sugar, flour and butter all at once and mixed it together.  After you mix together the flour and butter then add the sugar and oats and a big pinch of kosher salt.  Set aside.

In a cup of sugar (and 3/4 a cup is ample) add in the strawberries, rhubarb and a tbsp of vanilla.   Mix thoroughly.

Put the fruit in the pyrex and now cover with the crumble.  Here is where I got into trouble.  I decided that I did not need to use the whole crumble.  Wrong.  I should have spread it across the entire thing or at least 3/4 of it.  Then I put it in the oven to take for 45 minutes.  I realized that I should have used more crumble quickly but had already cleaned up.  I just decided whatever, it will be fine.

I took the crumble out when it was ready and decided I’d fix it.  I made more of the crumble mixture off the top of my head and then covered the crumble again with the mixture.  Then I put it back in the oven figuring why not.  It kind of worked but kind of didn’t.  It was delicious but not as crisp as I would have liked.  One thing that happened which was an added bonus is the sides got really caramelized so it was like eating those fruit roll ups as a kid.  Strawberry rhubarb roll up.

Lessons learned.  Most important, when you double a recipe you don’t necessarily have to use it all but you should use most of it.  And when you put sugar, flour, butter, fruit and oats into the oven together it generally just works out.

 

 

Comments (Archived):

  1. allison

    I make my crumble topping with equal parts flour, brown sugar, oats and unsweetened shredded coconut. Dead easy and crazydelicious.

    1. Gotham Gal

      Coconut. Yum!

  2. Alex Wolf

    Joanne, I also make mine with equal parts of all ingredients. I made crumbles 2-3x/week in summer for decades and arrived at this easy math. (I believe recipes you can memorize make sense, and they get made more).Also, make the topping and put in fridge or freezer – it’s sits better on top of the fruit and so stays crisper and more crumbly. Also, if it looks crumbly but not as crisp as desired a minute with the broiler helps that.