Sweet Tooth Sunday

You guys.

I have been staring at the farmer’s market rhubarb in my crisper drawer all week, pining away for some kind of baked good.  I had planned to make rhubarb brownies, but I am not in a chocolate mood.  Yesterday when I made a trip to the grocery store, I snagged some strawberries on sale.  Naturally, I thought of a strawberry-rhubarb crisp so I took to Pinterest!  I found a nice little recipe, but was missing a few ingredients so I improvised.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble Bars (Source: The Tart Tart)

For the crumble/crust:

• 3/4 cup oat flour (or ground oats, in my case)
• 1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 t. baking powder
• zest of half a lemon
• 1 1/2 sticks butter (I used salted butter and omitted the salt), cubed
• 1 large egg

Like I said before, I don’t happen to have any oat flour laying around the house.  So, I grabbed my trusty mortar and pestle and ground some old-fashioned oats. Yes, as in Quaker Old Fashioned Oats.

Holler. At. Me.

Once my dry ingredients were assembled, I stirred in one lightly beaten egg and the lemon juice with a wooden spoon.

Here’s the thing about making a crisp or a crumble or a pie crust: use cold butter.  You have to.  Trust me. I mean it.  And don’t mix it with your hands because that will warm the butter.  If you have a pastry cutter, good for you.  I am not that shmancy. I used two knives and cut the butter into the flour mixture, like a good little Yankee who was raised by a southern lady.

Once you get the mixture to a consistency where its chunky, press 2/3 of the mixture into a 9″ pan that you’ve buttered and floured.  (You are going to reserve the 1/3 for the top, so feel free to save a little more if you want.  I like a strong base so that they are easier to cut into bars.)  In fact, I encourage you to press the crust in firmly.

Then, mix together the filling  & spoon it over top of the crust:

• 2 cups rhubarb, sliced in 1/2 inch pieces
• 2 cups strawberries, sliced
• juice of half lemon
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 4 T. corn starch

Sprinkle on the rest of the topping and bake at 375F for 50 minutes.

When these came out, I let them cool for a few hours before I cut into them.  They were still warm in the middle and seemed like they wanted to fall apart, but thought better of it.  I didn’t really give mine much time to think about it.

I mean, how could you not want to bring these to a cookout or  picnic?