If you ever made me choose between something with chocolate and something with berries I would go for the berries. I know it’s outrageous and deserve all your hate comments but it’s the honest truth, haha. These berry crumble bars are spectacular. They have the perfect amount of berry filling, cookie base and crunchy crumble on top. You can cut them larger and serve them as dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
I usually share the desserts I make so that I don’t end up eating the whole mould by myself. This dessert was not the exception but it was extremely hard to share it because it’s just too good. In the end my selfishness made me share only half of the berry bars. I have to say they’re particularly delicious warm so I pop them in the oven for a few minutes before eating them. Avoid doing this in the microwave because they become soft.
I love the idea of making these berry crumble bars for breakfast or tea time. At those moments you usually serve a mix of savoury and sweet bites. Maybe you wouldn’t want to eat a whole piece of fruit pie (although I wouldn’t judge, I would totally have a piece), but a bar like this is perfect and extra yummy with a cup of coffee or tea. Also of course if you want to eat more than one you have the excuse that they’re small.
These berry crumble bars were uploaded first to the blog a while back and deserved a remake. It’s really delicious and the photos I took back then weren’t making them any justice. On the other hand, there was no way I was turning down the chance of making them (and eating them) once again. I think that the most important hotspot you need to bear in mind for this recipe is that the base cookie needs to cool down completely after the oven before placing the berries on top. If you were to do this the base would soak up the juices from the berries and become soggy.
Ingredients
For the base dough
- 75 g unsalted butter soft, at room temperature
- 25 g white granulated sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp vanilla essence
- 100 g all-purpose flour
For the filling
- 350 g berries I used a mix of blueberries, raspberries and blackberries but you can use just one type or the berry mix you prefer
- 60 g white granulated sugar
- Juice from half a lemon
- 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
- ¼ tsp powdered cinnamon
For the crumble
- 14 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 100 g unsalted butter cold and cut in small cubes
- 120 g brown sugar
- ½ tsp salt
Instructions
For the base dough
- Use a whisk to cream the butter and sugar until you have an even texture.
- Add the salt, vanilla essence and mix again.
- Finish by adding the flour and mixing it in using a spatula. Only mix it by hand slightly if it needs further incorporating. Keep it to a minimum dough as it gets tough if over-kneaded.
- Cut baking paper so it fits into the mould. It should cover the base of the mould and have extra pieces at each side to cover them for an easy unmoulding afterwards. You can stick the paper to the mould using a bit of vegetable oil and spreading it using a piece of kitchen paper.
- Spread out the dough on the base of the mould by pressing down with your fingers. Try to make it as even as posible.
- Cook the dough in a preheated oven at 180C / 350F for 15-25min or until golden.
- Let it cool down completely before spreading the berries on top or it will absorb their juices and become soggy.
For the filling
- If the berries are frozen let them thaw completely on a colander and discard the liquid they release in this process. You want to measure the berries at this point.
- If some berries are a bit big you can cut them in half or quarters.
- Mix the berries with the rest of the filling’s ingredients and spread them onto the base we baked previously.
For the crumble
- Place all the ingredients in a bowl and use your fingers to pinch the butter with the rest of the ingredients. You can also do this on a food processor.
- Stop pinching the butter when there’s no butter pieces and the mix looks like wet sand.
- Sprinkle the crumble over the berries using your fingers to separate the crumbles as they fall.
- Cook the berry bars in a preheated oven at 180C /350F for 30-35min. If the crumble is sufficiently golden before this you can cover the mould with tin foil to prevent it from burning. Don’t remove it from the oven before that time, the flour in the filling needs at least this much to cook.
- Let it cool completely before unmoulding. Lift the bars by lifting it from the sides of the paper and cut them is squares.
