(rhubarb strawberry) crisp

Working from this recipe, I made a rhubarb strawberry crisp today. For the fruit, you proceed as for pie. In this case, about 6 cups of sliced rhubarb and strawberries were tossed with about a cup of sugar, a few tablespoons of corn starch and a big pinch of cinnamon. I used a 9x13 pan, which I did not butter (although the recipe calls for buttering). Other crisps/crumbles that I'd made recently had a topping that was too starchy; I was using flour and rolled oats but too little sugar and rubbing cold butter into the dry. For today's crisp, I used

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup rolled oats (I like large flake)
• 3/4 packed brown sugar
• a pinch of salt

and here's the surprise

• 1/2 cup melted butter

The dry ingredients are mixed and then drizzled with the melted butter and everything is tossed to combine. The resulting mixture does not hold together but is rather more like dark brown pebbles. This is spread over the fruit and the dish is baked at 375 for about 30 minutes until the topping is browned (I would say "browner"). This was a delicious crisp, and the topping was awesome. As soon as I find my copy of the "The Best Recipe" (we're still unpacking), I want to cross-check with their approach.

rhubarb pie

I vowed to make ten pies during my summer in Germany. I made the first yesterday. It would have come out better if I had baked it normally and not in "broil" mode, but I couldn't understand the icons on my damned European oven!

I put into PMC's pie crust (made with butter so it tasted good but was not super flaky) three cups of cut-up rhubarb and one cup of sugar. I put on the top crust, put it in a 200 C (400 F) oven for 20 min and then turned it down to 175 C (350 F) for another hour.

The pie was delicious but as I implied I was a bit disappointed with the crust. PMC, can you make a flaky crust with butter? If so, how? I have an intuition that you might be able to if you rolled it with flour, folded it, rolled it, and repeated many times?