Rhubarb-Blueberry Crisp

The bounty of fruit every summer always inspires me to bake. However, baking pies and tarts requires some forethought, especially if you're making piecrust from scratch. However, crumbles and crisps can be assembled in mere minutes, with no planning needed. That's why I love these types of desserts. And, well, I also love them because I can top them with ice cream. There's nothing like a hot crumble or crisp straight out of the oven with cold ice cream melting on top!



You may be wondering what differentiates a crumble from a crisp. By definition a crisp has the addition of oats, whereas a crumble is simply flour, sugar, and butter. Crisps also contain cinnamon and/or nutmeg. But whatever you decide to call your creation, it's going to taste great!



For my crisp I'm using rhubarb, which I love to combine with different fruits. Here I'm combining them with blueberries, for something other than the classic strawberry-rhubarb combo. Whenever I'm cooking or baking with rhubarb, I always love it paired with vanilla, especially when I can see those tiny little vanilla seeds in the finished dish. So for this recipe I'm using vanilla bean paste, which includes the vanilla seeds. You could also use a scraped vanilla bean, or just stick with the usual suspect, vanilla extract. Now, I know that rhubarb on its own is pretty tart, so you might think there's no reason to add lemon, but I think it adds more complexity to the flavor of the crisp. I would even recommend trying this with orange zest and juice. Just be sure to keep to the recommended amount. You don't want the crisp to be too liquidy by adding too much juice.

Rhubarb-Blueberry Crisp

for the filling:
1 pound rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
3/4 pound blueberries
1/4 cup white sugar
1 small lemon, zested and juiced (about 1 tablespoon zest and 2 tablespoons juice)
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or the seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean

for the crisp topping:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup light-brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup rolled oats

vanilla ice cream, for serving

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter a 2-quart baking dish.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the rhubarb chunks, blueberries, white sugar, lemon juice and zest, and vanilla. Toss everything to coat. Transfer to the prepared baking dish, spreading the rhubarb and blueberries out so that they're well distributed.

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour and light-brown sugar. Add the butter. Work together with a pastry cutter or fork. Add the salt and cinnamon. Keep working together until everything looks like clumpy sand. Mix in the oats. Crumble the mixture evenly over the rhubarb and blueberries in the baking dish.

Place the baking dish in the oven, and bake until the filling is bubbling and the crisp topping is nicely browned, about 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and set onto a trivet or cooling rack to cool slightly. Serve warm with plentiful scoops of vanilla ice cream. Yield: 4 to 6 servings.