Some food, some drink.

Dessert on the grill: I crumble for rhubarb.

Abstract: A crumble (or crisp if you like) is a simple and satisfying dessert that I consider the express-train to pie when you can't be bothered to fuss with a crust. More-so than a pie or cobbler, a crumble puts the focus back on the filling because the topping is so hard to mess up. After picking up a couple of pounds of crimson-colored rhubarb at the farmer's market, I was craving pie, but in no way wanted to mess with an oven on a hot summer day. With judiciously-applied heat courtesy of my gas grill, I baked a rhubarb + peach crumble that exemplifies all that is tart and lovely about rhubarb (and made me want to skip lunch and go straight for dessert).

Purpose: Crumble, crisp? It's all semantics probably. I call 'em crumbles because you “crumble” the topping as you sprinkle it over the filling. I tend to associate “crisp” with things that are thin and even; but hey, whatever. I was craving pie; but something incorporating whole-grains sounded good, and I sure as hell didn't feel like heating up the house.

A little while before, I had experimented with peaches and cranberries in a single-serving (ok, it was more like two servings) situation for a small cast-iron skillet on my grill and it was fabulous. Problem is, my trusty twelve-inch skillet is a but much for this application; so I decided to use a nine-inch square Pyrex instead, just as I would in the oven. To help avoid any wicked temperature swings that grills tend to be subject to, I used my Pyrex dish in conjunction with my baking stone.

Recipe: Jump to the detailed recipe. (or, keep reading for the gist of it) -

Bottom

1 lb yellow peaches (about 6 of 'em; peeled and sliced.)

1 lb rhubarb (4-6 stalks; large dice)

1/2 cup vanilla sugar (plain ol' white is fine too)

2 Tbsps amaretto

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg fresh-grated.

1/3 cup dried cherries

Top

1/3 cup quick oats

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup demerara sugar a.k.a. - raw or turbinado sugar

1 tsp Kosher salt

6 Tbsps butter Cold; like right out of the 'fridge.

Topping

1 cup heavy cream ice-cold

2 tsp amaretto Yes, more booze.

Preheat grill for indirect heat (or oven) to 425F. Mix all the Bottom ingredients together and let them sit in a bowl while you bring together the top. For the Top, combine oats, flour, demerara sugar and salt. Work in butter with a fork and/or fingers until the largest dry-coated butter bit is the size of a pea. Lightly grease the sides of a 9"x9" Pyrex dish, fill with Bottom mixture and crumble the Top over it. Bake for 45 minutes or until the whole thing is bubbly and brown on top. Let rest for at least 30 minutes before serving. For the topping, combine cream and amaretto and whisk until you reach desired consistency. Don't over-whisk unless you like amaretto-flavored butter. My stick blender with the whisk attachment works swell for this.

Observation:

We're baking on the grill, so that means indirect heat. Burners underneath the subject to be baked should be off or kept low. If you're one of the dozen folks that actually read what I write, then you know that this is old-hat.
If you can't/don't want to cook outdoors, a 425F oven will do this dessert just fine.
Red rhubarb, please. If you got green and don't want jeers from the food fashion police, consider using apples instead of peaches.
To hell with shocking peaches in water baths. The results are too inconsistent. Save some time and energy and buy a decent serrated peeler.
An explanation for the friends of Carrie Nation: Amaretto is predominantly almond-flavored. Almond, peach and cherry trees are all part of the same genus and thus all have fruits that are drupes. See what I just did there?
This recipe officially calls for quick oats, but I like to buy old-fashioned oats and give a few short pulses in the mini-prep. It gives the topping a much more interesting texture.
The butter must be right-out-of-the-fridge cold if you hope to attain those beautiful crumbles.
Let this stuff rest about a half-hour before brandishing a spoon. On the grill, this means shut it all down and leave it there while you have dinner.

Results: This recipe is a celebration of rhubarb, and rhubarb ain't sweet. The peaches and cherries actually serve to enhance the tartness, while the nutmeg emphasizes those citrusy overtones. If you're looking for something to satisfy a sweet tooth, move along. All the same, there is plenty of sugar in this dish, and those bits of demerara and kosher salt in the topping will serve to keep your tongue guessing. All that tartness should tell you that there's quite a bit of acid in this dish, and if you don't want your dessert (ahem... or breakfast) to be a tooth-etching affair, you're going to want to cut the acid with dairy. The amaretto whipped cream is top-notch, but I bet a pecan praline ice cream would just knock your socks off here as well.

Gallery:

Rhubarb is a bit of an eccentric. Bright candy-colored reds, cool minty greens, and yet it tastes nothing like you think it should; especially when raw.

Make sure the bottom of the crumble has some time to itself so the sugar can draw out some of that water the fruits and veg are holding back. I'll make a better filling.

Here's the texture I'm shooting for when preparing a crumble topping. Some bits are going to be a lot bigger than others, so don't fuss over it; you'll just melt the butter.

This is the setup I like to bake with on my gas grill. High heat on either side of that stone, and burners low/off in the center. Any excuse to bake in the summer is a good one.

Off the grill and resting. Don't sweat those little burned bits. It's the nature of baking on the grill, and you'll be fighting over them later.

Rhubarb Peach crumble/crisp finished with a dollop of amaretto-scented whipped cream (I was too lazy to do ice cream).

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