Recipe: Strawberry Raspberry Crisp

Image found here

Now that spring is finally here, berries are finally in season and making their way to the grocery stores. I bought strawberries and raspberries, too many actually, so I wanted to use them before they went bad. I found a recipe for strawberry raspberry crisp from Joy the Baker. I loved apple crisp when I was in college (served every Monday!), so I thought I'd try making this version.

Ingredients
1 pound fresh strawberries, hulled and quartered (~4 cups)
2 cups fresh raspberries (if using frozen, just thaw and drain)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup old fashioned oats
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions
1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Place sliced strawberries and raspberries in a square 8×8-inch baking dish and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, oats, spices, and salt. Add the butter and toss the mixture together with your hands. Break the butter up into the flour mixture until the butter is the size of small pebbles and oat flakes (~4 minutes). Toss in the walnuts (if using).

3. Toss a generous handful (~1 cup) of crumble topping into the strawberry and raspberry mixture. Toss loosely with your hands. Spread fruit evenly in the pan and top with the remaining crumble mixture. Bake until fruit is juicy and bubbling, and the top of the crumble is slightly browned and crisp, about 30 minutes.

4. Remove from the oven, let cool slightly, and serve with vanilla ice cream.

This recipe is DELICIOUS, and it's so easy! I did not use nutmeg or ginger; I just doubled the amount of cinnamon; I also didn't bother with the nuts. I also just cut the butter into really tiny pieces so that you don't have to mix things for so long (the recipe says four minutes: I think I did it for less than 1 minute. I have no patience!). I should say that when I took it out of the over, the fruit was bubbling like it's supposed to, but there were parts of the crumble on top that didn't look cooked (like it was still powdery flour in some spots). My guess is that those areas were just a little too thick, so I recommend spreading the crumble as evenly as you can, and not letting it pile up in parts of the pan.