Simple, sweet and oozing with fruit, Blueberry Crumble Bars are dessert’s answer to comfort food. I was in the mood for something just like this – an unfussy, child-friendly dessert that would please all ages. Prompted by a bag of blueberries in my freezer – a lingering souvenir from last summer – I thought of a blueberry cookie bar. After a quick scan of the web for inspiration, I spied a recipe at Smitten Kitchen, by way of allrecipes. This was exactly the kind of dessert I wanted to make: A recipe passed from kitchen to kitchen, tweaked with each rendition and then handed off to the next home cook. So, now I pass this recipe on to you – with just a few more tweaks. There is nothing complicated about this recipe, except the challenge of not eating too many in one go.
Blueberry Crumble Bars
Makes 16 – 20 bars
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 large egg
Zest and juice of one lemon
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
Preheat oven to 375 F. (190 C.) Butter an 8 inch square baking pan. Line with parchment and butter parchment.
Combine flour, 3/4 cup sugar, baking powder and salt in bowl of food processor. Pulse to blend. Add butter and egg. Pulse until dough resembles coarse crumbs. Pulse in lemon zest.
Whisk 1/4 cup sugar, lemon juice, cornstarch and cinnamon together in a bowl. Add blueberries and stir to combine.
Evenly spread half of the dough in the prepared pan. Spread blueberries evenly over the dough. Top with remaining dough. Bake until golden brown and bubbly, 45 minutes. Remove and cool to allow the flavors to develop and the bars to firm up.
Wow- these look just perfectly delicious.
Here comes summer! Fresh berries are trickling into our markets, although I think the frozen work even better, as you have used here. No blue crumble bars!
What pretty little things! And I love how you can use frozen berries. Means I don’t have to wait for summer to come to New Jersey (which it seems will NEVER happen!) to make these. Thanks for sharing!
Wow my mom made something so similar to this. She would usually use apple sauce but occasionally used blueberries! When I was in high school, way back then, I had to do a demonstration in speech class and I did I demo of the recipe and had the finished product to hand out at the end. When I saw your photo it put a smile on my face! New to your blog but I’ll be back!
Great photo. These look amazing.
Oh my, these look great! I’ve had blueberries on the brain lately…made blueberry cobbler (and blogged about it!) just a couple weeks ago. I’m gonna bookmark this and give them a try SOON! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Any dessert with blueberries is fabulous! These definitely look worth trying.
These look great – in fact I used to make a recipe that was similar many, many years ago – but the basis of it was a Pillsbury packet cake – I have been meaning to attempt to make something like it from scratch for ages. Thanks for the inspiration!!
mmmmm… I´ve been looking for something like this 😀
I love blueberries, and these look fabulous! I made blueberry crisp not long ago, and that turned out to be a great blueberry option too.
What a beautiful bar cookie! Love blueberries. Congrats on the top 9 today!
Looks amazing! Love the photos.
looks perfect. thanks for the recipe!
These look gorgeous, and are just the perfect use for a few bags of frozen blueberries I need to use. Will I ever get to the bottom of my freezer? – S
Am I the only one who actually made this??
Fantastic wonderful. I had one stick of butter and about a tablespoon of butter. I thought it wouldn’t be enough so I added a couple of tablespoons of oil. Totally didn’t need it ……they were grrrrrrreat!
excellent recipie. I made this for my Grandmother’s birthday celebration. I have seen a similar recipie except with lemon pie filling. I will make this again.
i loved these bars and made them last summer with fresh vermont berries! linked to this from my blog, actually. just wanted to say hi & thank you for an excellent recipe – these have consistently been a hit!
You are welcome! Thanks for letting me know and thank you for the link!
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