Berry Crumb Bars

You can click on that photo to see it up close. ;-)

I tried out a new recipe last week and it was decent. It has lots of potential! I'll list the recipe "as is", but per usual, let ya know what I did differently.

1 cup white sugar
1 tsp baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup shortening
1 egg
1 pinch salt
1 pinch ground cinnamon
4 cups raspberries
1/2 cup white sugar
3 tsp cornstarch


Preheat oven to 375. Spray 9x13 dish (or you could half the recipe and throw it into an 8x8). Combine 1 cup sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon (I used 1/2 tsp of cinnamon and thought it gave just a hint of taste. A pinch would be pointless.) Cut in shortening into the flour/sugar mixture (I used 1/2 butter and 1/2 vegetable shortening. Next time I'll use all butter, because I think it'll give it more flavor.) Stir in egg. Pat half of crumbled mixture into pan. Reserve the rest.

Combine 1/2 cup sugar, corn starch and raspberries in a bowl (I used a bag of frozen berries - mixture of strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Really, any kind of berry will work here - all the same or mix 'em together.) Pour berry mixture over the crust in the pan. Top with remaining crumbled mixture.

Bake at 375 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until top is lightly browned. Now the original recipe didn't call for this, but what I did was take a cup of powdered sugar and a few teaspoons of warm water and mixed till I got a glaze consistency. Then after the bars were cooled, I used a spoon to drizzle the glaze over the top. The recipe 'as is' is not an overly sweet dessert, and I thought the glaze gave it just a hint of sweetness - not too much, not too little. Just my opinion! Another tip: if time allows, I encourage you to make this the day before you'll be serving it. It tastes way better the next day. :-)