Spiced Rhubarb Crisp Recipe

One of my favorite summer desserts is rhubarb anything. I am not sure what makes it so delicious, but that tangy, earthy taste gets me every time. I love it in pie, as a sauce, in cocktails, or, the ever-popular rhubarb crisp. This summer, I discovered our new house had a rhubarb patch. Talk about a pleasant surprise! I then spent the next few weeks perfecting my crisp recipe. I’ve been cutting our rhubarb every few days, chopping it up and freezing it to keep for many weeks to come as well! But for today, let’s bake a crisp.

Side note. Is it a crisp? A crumble? A cobbler? I spent an embarrassing amount of time researching the difference. It appears that crisps get oats on top, but crumbles dont. So, this is a crisp! Cobblers have biscuits or cake on top. There’s also some concoction called a buckle? Okay, back on track. We’re making a crisp.

spiced-rhubarb-crisp

I make this is three teeny little loaf pans because it’s just me and Charles, and a giant pan of dessert is simply not needed. It also makes them the perfect size for gifting! If you want to make it in a big pan, I have the modifications in the recipe for you!

Let’s Bake

For the filling:

  • 6 cups rhubarb, fresh or frozen.

  • 2 tablespoons flour (for gluten free, you could sub a little cornstarch slurry)

  • 1/2 cup sugar

  • 1 tsp cinnamon

  • 1/2 tsp ginger (ground or grated fresh)

  • 1/2 tsp anise seed (gives a licorice flavor, if you like that. Totally optional but cool)

  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg

  • Splash/squeeze of lemon juice

spiced-rhubarb-crisp

For the topping:

  • 1 cup rolled oats

  • 1/4 cup flour (or that cornstarch action again. Rice flour will also work in a pinch, but the texture isn’t as nice)

  • 1 tsp cinnamon

  • 1/3 cup softened butter

  • 1/2 cup brown sugar, the darker the better

Putting it together:

Preheat that oven. 350F. In a mixing bowl, dump all the contents of your filling in there and stir them around. If using frozen rhubarb, there is no need to thaw. If you don’t love the spices I use, this is a choose your own adventure story. I like my crisp to be a little bit of “I am tasting a lot of flavors, but it’s good” vibes. The anise is the wildcard. It adds a licorice flavor that almost amplifies the sweetness of the rhubarb. Once you have mixed everything together, dump it into a pan. What kind of pan, do you ask? I prefer the three small loaf pan method, as I mentioned above. Otherwise, any kind of baking dish or casserole dish will do. The baking times I list will account for three baby crisps or one big boy.

spiced-rhubarb-crisp

You can use the same (now empty) bowl to assemble your topping next. Again, pretty simple. Dump it in. Using a fork or our fingers (you can guess which one I prefer), cut the butter into the mixture until everything is evenly mixed. No weird chunks of butter anywhere. Sprinkle on top of your filling!

To bake, if you did the three tinies, its 25 minutes. For one big crisp, it’s 45 minutes. Take it out when the filling is bubbly and everything is nice and brown on top.

This is amazing on its own, but better warm with a scoop of ice cream.

Your turn! Do you love rhubarb, or walking on past rhubarb season?

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Disclaimer: Links above may be affiliate links, in which I would receive a small percentage from each sale. It doesn’t cost you anything extra. These are all supplies I use when baking this crisp!

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