Blueberry Crumb Bars

When I was little, my Yia-Yia's backyard was completely lined with blueberry bushes, and one of my favorite childhood memories is going out into her backyard with her to pick berries, so blueberries have been one of my favorites my whole life.

Although I love blueberry pie, I really wanted to try something different with the berries this time, and I found a great recipe for blueberry bars on Smitten Kitchen's fabulous site. If you've never visited her site, please do, it puts mine to shame. I only wish I was as creative of a baker, and as talented of a photographer.

But anyway, these bars attracted me because they seemed simple and straightforward, and yet big on taste. I have very little spare time, so I try to get the biggest baking bang for my buck, so to speak, and this recipe looked like it fit the bill.

Like all the best summer recipes, you start with fresh fruit: blueberries, which you combine with a little lemon juice, sugar and cornstarch.

Then you assemble the dough for the crust by combining sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest.

Cut in the butter and egg (I used a pastry blender, but a fork works just as well, or a food processor would also work nicely -- I just never want to clean mine afterwards).

The dough will be moist but crumbly when you are done. Pat half the dough down in a 9x13" pan…

Dump the blueberry mixture on top…

And then crumble the remaining dough on top. Easy! I told you!

Bake at 375F until the top turns golden. The original recipe said it should take 45 minutes, in my oven it took closer to 55, so the easiest thing to do is just start watching around 45 minutes, and pull it out of the oven when the top crumbs have a nice golden hue.

Let them cool to room temperature, and then cover and put them in the fridge to chill. As Smitten Kitchen also notes, these bars cut best when chilled. And although you don't necessarily need to store them in the refrigerator after cutting (they won't spoil or anything), they do keep better and taste better in the fridge than at room temp.

And these bars are definitely worth it! They are easy and delicious, a perfect no-fuss summer treat!

Blueberry Crumb Bars

Ingredients

Dough

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup cold unsalted butter (2 sticks or 8 ounces)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Zest of one lemon

Fruit

• Juice of one lemon
• 4 cups fresh blueberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 4 teaspoons cornstarch

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 9×13 inch pan.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, 3 cups flour, and baking powder. Mix in salt and lemon zest. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in the butter and egg. Dough will be crumbly. Pat half of dough into the prepared pan.
3. In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 45-60 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares.

Strawberry Rhubarb Oat Bars

I've had an unintentionally long hiatus from posting recipes. That is a combination of moving, working two jobs, and being pregnant. The frustrating this is  it's not so much finding the time to cook or bake (although I'm not doing either as often as I would like) as it is finding the time to organize and post a well thought-out entry. But I finally sat down today to write the first of about 30 some-odd entries that I have had back-logged and in the posting queue since last summer, so I'm posting these out of chronological order, but according to the season we are currently in, if that makes sense. I have about 6 baking entries that I consider "summer themed' so I am going to try to bang out as many of those posts as I can before the end of August.

I also have a huge number of backlogged cooking posts from the farm share I had last summer, which I suppose are "summer themed" as well, but I'd rather get the baking ones out of the way first, since I tend to be more enthusiastic about my baking than about my cooking.

Strawberry and rhubarb is one of my favorite summer flavor combinations, and this is not the first strawberry-rhubarb dessert I've posted on this blog, but it might just be my favorite. This particular recipe is a relatively simple bar recipe which I modified from a post on landolakes.com (don't ask how I ended up there browsing, I can't remember for the life of me!)

You start with the filling, which is made up primarily of sliced rhubarb and sliced strawberries.

Cook the fruit over medium heat with a little lemon juice until the fruit breaks down into a preserve of jam consistency. 

The original recipe said this would take about 8-12 minutes, but if I recall correctly, it took me about 20.

Then you add in sugar and cornstarch and bring it back up to a bubble, give it a chance to thicken, and set it aside.

While the fruit is cooling, start on the crust by combining oats, butter, brown sugar and flour in a bowl.

Pat about half of it into the bottom of a 9x13" pan.

Spread the fruit over the bottom crust (fruit does not have to cool completely, however long it takes you to make the crust and preheat the oven is good enough), and then sprinkle the reserve crust on the top evenly.

Bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes, until the top is a nice golden brown.

Cool completely before cutting and serving.

These bars were delicious, and a big hit when I brought them into work. They are sweet, tart, transport well, and don't have to be refrigerated. 

All in all, they are a great choice for a summertime treat, especially if you need a take-along dessert!!

Strawberry Rhubarb Oat Bars

Ingredients

Filling

• 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen unsweetened rhubarb, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 1/2 cups sliced fresh strawberries
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch

Crust

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups uncooked quick-cooking oats
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup butter softened
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

 Directions

1. Combine rhubarb, strawberries and lemon juice in 2-quart saucepan. Cover; cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until fruit is tender (8 to 12 minutes). Basically the consistency of preserves, if not full-on jam.
2.  Combine 1/2 cup sugar and cornstarch in small bowl. Stir into fruit mixture. Continue cooking, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil (about 1 minute). Continue boiling until thickened (1 minute). Remove from heat. Set aside. 
3.  Heat oven to 350°F. Combine all crust ingredients in large bowl. Beat at low speed, scraping bowl often, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Reserve 1 1/2 cups crumb mixture. Press remaining crumb mixture onto bottom of greased 13x9-inch baking pan. Spread filling over crust. Sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture.
4.  Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely. 

Berry Buttermilk Cake

A slice of Strawberry Buttermilk cake!  

It's quick, it's easy, it uses up extra berries -- the Berry Buttermilk Cake! This is a great, light, fruit-based recipe for summer! I found it originally on Epicurious, paired with raspberries. You could use any type of berry however, and I made one version with sliced strawberries, and one with raspberries. Any berry would work here, including blackberries, blueberries, and (pitted) cherries.



Quick note about ingredients: you don't have to go out and buy buttermilk just for this recipe (or any recipe for that matter). I sure didn't. In order to make buttermilk, you just add 1 tbls of lemon juice or white vinegar to 1 C of milk, and let it clabber for about 10 minutes, until it thickens. Conveniently enough, this recipe already calls for lemon zest, so you can zest a lemon, squeeze it, and then add 1/2 tbls of the juice to 1/2 C milk to get the 1/2 C of buttermilk the recipe calls for. I even used 2% milk because it was all I had in the fridge, and it worked great!

Raspberry cake before baking

The ingredients list looks long, but it really isn't. This cake comes together fast, and bakes even faster. And then you get this:

Yum!

Strawberry...

or Raspberry~

Ingredients

• 1 C AP flour
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
• 2/3 C sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (if you are making a cherry cake, almond extract might work better)
• 1/2 tsp lemon zest 
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon (optional, best with blueberries or strawberries)
• 1/2 C buttermilk (see above)
• 1 C berries
• additional sugar for sprinkling

Directions

1. Zest your lemon. Squeeze the juice if you are making you own buttermilk, and clabber the milk (above)
2. Preheat oven to 400F
3. Butter and flour a 9" round pan
4. Combine dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and soda, salt, and cinnamon) in a bowl and set aside
5. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add in vanilla and zest, then the egg
6. Add flour in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk (starting and ending with flour). Mix until just combined each time
7. Pour batter into cake pan, smoothing out top if necessary
8. Scatter berries over top (I ended up using a little less than a cup of strawberries, but about a cup of raspberries),and sprinkle with sugar (about 1 1/2-2 tsp)
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until cake is golden and toothpick inserted comes out clean
10. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then depan and cool completely. Invert onto a plate.
11. Pair with whipped cream or Cool Whip and enjoy!

This cake is delicious. Moist, light, only slightly sweet, and pairs wonderfully with whipped cream or Cool Whip. In fact, both berry versions of this cake tasted even better the next day, when the flavors had a chance to meld a bit more. I could definitely taste the lemon zest more in the raspberry cake, presumably because I made that cake without cinnamon, and it was a wonderful pairing. I can't wait to try it with blueberries. This recipe is definitely a great go-to cake, light and refreshing. I got raves when I brought it into the office (both times). It disappeared before 9am.

Raspberry with a hint of lemon! Delicious!

I have a mind to double this recipe and make one cake with strawberries, and one with bananas, and then assemble the whole thing with whipped cream as a layer cake.