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.

Cherry Pie with Almond Crumb Topping

This is my second cherry pie this summer, the previous being a traditional 2-crust pie. Having made a quick lemon meringue pie over the weekend, I was left with enough crust for a single-crust pie. And when I saw the cherries in the supermarket, I decided that now was the time to try the crumb-topped cherry pie that I had been pondering since the last cherry pie I made. I decided to leave the filling basically the same as my previous pie, I have reposted the ingredients below for convenience.

Look at these gorgeous cherries!

Here are the crumbs, notice the
uneven almond pieces

For the crumb topping, I just winged it, adding equal parts of flour and sugar, some oats, lots of almonds and butter, a dash of cinnamon and a bit of almond extract. I used about ¼ tsp of cinnamon, and I think it could have been even stronger, I was light handed with the cinnamon because I didn’t want to overpower the almond extract (or clash with it). If you want it a little stronger, I leave that decision to your taste buds. I also used regular sugar, because I didn’t want the crumbs to be too heavy and sweet, and it turned out great. However, it would probably be just as great with light brown sugar, so feel free to use that if you want a slightly stronger and sweeter crumb! I added the almonds slices whole, and used a fork to combine the crumbs, breaking up the almond slices as I mixed. The almond breakage wasn’t uniform, so it gave a nice variation in texture and taste. Don’t worry about getting to every last little almond slice.

Ingredients:

Pie filling!

Pie

• Dough for a single-crust pie, rolled out (your favorite recipe or refrigerated)
• 4 C pitted fresh cherries (if using frozen, thaw and drain them first)
• ½-3/4 C sugar (adjust to the sweetness of your cherries, I used ½ C for sweet cherries and it was perfect)
• 4 tbls cornstarch
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 tbls lemon juice (if you like a tart cherry pie, which I do. Half this or adjust the sugar if not)
• 1/8 tsp salt
• Flour, for sprinkling dough

Topping

Topped and ready to bake

• ½ C flour
• ½ C sugar, white or light brown
• 1/3 C oats
• 1 C almonds, sliced
• 6-7 tbls of butter, melted
• ½ tsp almond extract
• Cinnamon to taste (1/4 tsp)
• Pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375F
2. Make the pie filling: Combine cherries, cornstarch, sugar, lemon, salt, and almond extract gently in a bowl
3. Place bottom crust in pie plate, and spread 1 tbls flour on the bottom crust. This will help prevent the bottom crust from getting soggy.
4. Spoon filling into the bottom crust. 
5. Make the topping: Combine the ingredients for the topping, and mix until moistened. If it seems a little dry for you, add in the 7th tbls of butter. 
6. Sprinkle the crumbs onto the pie as uniformly as you can, giving the best coverage that you can. Gently pat the crumbs into place.
7. Bake at 375 for 1hr to 1hr 10min. I put an aluminum shield on the crust about halfway through and it was perfect.
8. Let cool completely on rack.

Fresh out of the oven

Effort-wise, this pie was on par with a double-crust pie. Making the crumb topping takes about as much time as rolling a second crust, so that is a wash.

Close-up of the topping

 I have to say, I really enjoyed the change in flavor and texture that the crumb topping gave to this pie. The filling was the perfect contrast to the crumbs in every way, and each bite had the taste of buttery crust, tart cherries, and sweet crunchy crumbs.

The crumbs contrast perfectly with the cherries

Plus, and this was part of the reason I experimented with this pie in the first place, converting the cherry pie into a single-crust pie will make it easier to make a mini-pie version!! I am all about mini-pies, I have 3” pie tins that are crying out to be used. And, it is preferable to roll and cut crusts for tons of single-crust pies as opposed to 2-crust pies, because double-crust means you either have to make twice as much dough, or half as many pies! That seems like a lose-lose situation to me.

All in all, as you wind down your summer baking, and the last few weeks of good fruit come in, consider making this, or indeed any fruit pie. The fresh ripe berries won’t be around much longer, make haste!

Key Lime Coconut Crumb Bars

My husband and I have this  deal, you see. He really isn’t into sweets, which is rather unfortunate since all I know how to do is bake.  He will, however, make an exception for several things that incorporate fruit, such as the thumbprint cookies from a previous posting. I promised, in keeping with the theme of the approaching summer, that all of my baking would include fruit until at least the end of August.
 

So when I saw this recipe on the Pioneer Woman Cooks, I knew I had to try it. After all, it’s Ree Drummond.  Have you met Ree? If not, then head on over to The Pioneer Woman ASAP. You’ll thank me. Not only does she bake, she cooks, and her recipes are insanely good, her writing is always entertaining, and her photos are gorgeous. 

Anyway, on Ree’s site, there was this darling recipe for lemon crumb squares. And it caught my eye, because I was just talking about lemon squares with my mother the other week. But we were talking about more traditional shortbread-bottomed, cooked pudding-topped lemon squares. Ree’s recipe is a variation that uses two layers of crumbs that are cousins to coffee cake crumbs, except without cinnamon…and way denser…and with oatmeal...with a delicious layer of lemon sandwiched between them. And then, the clincher:  Ree casually mentions at the bottom of her post that the recipe would also work for key limes.

Sold.

I hoofed it over to the supermarket and grabbed a few limes, a can of sweetened condensed milk, and a bottle of Nellie and Joe’s Famous Key West Lime Juice. Sometimes this is in the juice aisle, and sometimes it is in the baking aisle, so you might have to look around for it.  Why didn’t I just squeeze the nice limes I grabbed at the supermarket, you ask? I don’t know, “key lime” just sounds a little sexier. Key lime pie, Florida, summer, and all those other lovely word associations I made in my head. Besides, key limes are tarter than the average lime. But, this recipe will also work fine with the juice from the typical Persian limes found in your supermarket. So if you feel really bad about pitching a perfectly good lime after zesting it, you can do this. Or you can do how I do and use the key lime juice from the bottle, zest from the Persian lime, and then cut up the Persian lime into wedges suitable for Coronas. Problem solved, no more qualms of conscious here. Phew.

So anyway, you zest the sucker (if you don’t already have a microplane zester, you should look into it. I much prefer it to traditional zesters with the holes on one end), which is a good way to wake up in the morning, by the way.  The smell is amazing.

Then you take all that lovely zest, a can of sweetened condensed milk, and about ½ C of the lime juice, and beat it together. I’ve already made these bars a few times, since there is way more than ½ C of lime juice in the bottle I bought, and I’ve used both the whisk and paddle attachments to do this, and they both work great. The mixture will be a little runny no matter how you mix it, don’t be alarmed.

Next up, the crumbs. You cream slightly softened butter with brown sugar until it is nice and combined. Then you add in some oats. At this point, I diverged from Ree’s original recipe a little further, because I made the command decision that I wanted coconut in my key lime bars. Because they go together. There’s even a song about it that Kermit sings (okay, Harry Nilsson sang it first, but who can resist Kermit the Frog?). So add about a cup and a half of shredded sweetened coconut at this point as well, and mix it up. Then, sift in the flour, salt and baking powder.

Half the crumbs go down on the bottom of the pan (I used a disposable 8X12 pan; Ree used an 8X11 casserole dish; a 9X13 pan can also be used, the bars will just be thinner).  You can push the crumbs down with your hands, or the back of a measuring cup. 

Then, dump on all of that lovely lime filling on, and spread it around. 

Then I decided to sprinkle more coconut on top of the lime layer, just by eye until I figured it was covered enough. 

And then, sprinkle on the other half of the crumbs. Don’t pat them down like with the bottom layer, just gently even them out. You don't want wayward crumbs standing tall, they will brown faster than the rest of the top layer, and may burn before the rest is done.

Then you bake it at 350F for about 25 minutes. When it comes out of the oven, let it rest at room temperature for about 30 minutes, to give the filling a chance to set up.   

Then, I would advise cutting the bars (leaving them in the pan) and then popping them in the fridge.  Trust me and cut them before you chill them – if you wait until after you chill the pan, the crumbs will be harder to cut through, and you will most likely destroy the top layer. 

 These bars are pretty fabulous, especially if you like citrus, and especially if you're ready for summer! They are easy to put together, and a definite crowd-pleaser! If you want lemon, that can be substituted as per Ree's original recipe. Personally, I'd like to try the lemon one with some blueberries sprinkled on top of the lemon layer, and maybe a dash of cinnamon in the crumbs.

Ingredients

• 1-⅓ cup All-purpose Flour
• ½ teaspoons Salt
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1 stick (1/2 Cup) Butter, Slightly Softened
• 1 cup Brown Sugar (lightly Packed)
• 1 cup Oats
• 1  ½ cup shredded Sweetened Coconut for crumbs, plus more for sprinkling
• 1 can (14 Ounce) Sweetened Condensed Milk
• ½ cups Key Lime Juice
• Zest Of 1 Lime

Preparation Instructions

1. PREHEAT OVEN TO 350 DEGREES.

2. Mix butter and brown sugar until well combined. 

3. Add oats and coconut to the butter mixture and combine

4. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together into the butter/sugar mixture and mix to combine. 

5. Press half of crumb mixture into the bottom of an 8 x 12 inch pan (or 8X11, 9X13, etc).

6. Mix together condensed milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Spread onto the bottom layer of the crumb mixture. 

7. Top with the other half of the crumb mixture, but don’t press.

8. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. 

9. Allow pan to sit on counter for 30 minutes after baking. Cut into squares and refrigerate for a couple of hours or until cool.

Serve cool.

Lime