Ina Garten Just Shared Her Favorite Spring Dessert Recipe—and Fans Say It's an "All-Time Favorite"
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There's always something refreshing about spring—the brighter evenings, the cleaner house and the anticipation of summer are all a part of it. But the best part of all might be the fresh produce hitting the grocery store and farmers market. We're stocking up on carrots, greens and asparagus for the dinner menu, plus eyeing all the fresh fruit for dessert.
That includes sunny citrus, like lemons and limes, plus strawberries and even rhubarb. Though rhubarb is technically a veggie, we can think of plenty of ways to transform the rosy stalks into a deliciously sweet-tart treat. Even Ina Garten has revealed herself to be a huge fan of rhubarb's mellow sourness. The Food Network star took to Instagram to share her recipe for a Raspberry Rhubarb Crostata, which she says is her favorite sweet treat for spring.
"Crostatas are a great way to celebrate any season—peach in summer, apple in winter—but my favorite spring dessert is a Raspberry Rhubarb Crostata," Garten wrote on Instagram. "The rhubarb is tart, the raspberries are sweet, and it all comes together in a buttery crisp crust. I hope you like it as much as I do!!"
While you'll need more than a few ingredients to copy Ina's crostata—five ingredients for the pastry dough and eight for the filling—the recipe itself is pretty simple. You'll start by combining flour, sugar and salt in a food processor, pulsing the dry ingredients a few times. Then add very cold cubed butter and toss the butter in the flour mixture with your hands until the cubes are coated. Pulse until the butter is in pea-sized pieces, then add ice water through the feed tube with the processor running. This recipe yields two crusts, so you empty the processor bowl onto a cutting board, slice the dough in half and wrap and refrigerate both halves.
For the filling, you'll need to gather cornstarch, rhubarb, raspberries, sugar, orange zest, fresh orange juice, egg and raw sugar. In a small bowl, create a cornstarch slurry by combining the cornstarch with a little water, then set aside. In a heavy saucepan, combine the rhubarb, raspberries, sugar and orange over medium heat, cooking for about five minutes. Then add the cornstarch slurry and continue cooking for a few more minutes. Then pour the fruit mixture into a bowl and refrigerate it until cool.
Related: 22 Healthy & Delicious Desserts You'll Want to Make This Spring
To assemble the crostata, you'll roll out your pastry until it's about a 12-inch circle. Transfer it to a parchment-lined baking sheet and add the fruit mixture to the middle of the crust. There should be just about 1 1/2-inch border of the pie crust untouched by the fruit. Fold that border over and lightly press down to secure. Using the egg and a little water, whisk up a little egg wash and brush the wash along the folded edge, then sprinkle with raw sugar and bake at 425°F for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the filling is thickened and the crust is just browned.
Serve it up with a dollop of whipped cream or maybe even a scoop of vanilla ice cream—especially for folks who are sensitive to the tart flavor of rhubarb. Trent Pheifer, the fan who paid tribute to Garten by cooking every single one of her recipes, commented on the post to say that the crostata is "one of my all-time favorites," so you know it's among the best Ina has to offer. Other folks chimed in to say that they'll probably use the other half of that pie dough to make Garten's Apple Crostata down the line. (That recipe might be even easier than this one!)
Related: 10 Rhubarb Desserts for a Sweet-Tart Treat
If you decide you want to keep the berry-rhubarb fun going, you could try simple warm-weather classics like our Strawberry-Rhubarb Icebox Cake and Strawberry-Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake with Yogurt. While this recipe doesn't figure into Ina's Easter or Passover menus this year, it's a delicious spring treat that would be right at home in a big holiday spread or a fun weeknight meal—we may even have to try it for ourselves tonight.
