this past week, chris, pua, and i went up to maine for the fourth of july week.  i just love going to maine to visit chris’ family – especially our nieces and nephew.  they are just the cutest.  as usual, i made some treats to bring up: peanut butter chocolate chip shortbread cookies, lilikoi (passion fruit) bars, and these blueberry crumb bars.

the recipe is actually very similar to the peach crumb bars i made a couple years ago.  those peach bars were amazing so i knew that these blueberry bars were going to be good.  boy did they live up to my expectations.  they were blueberry-y and lemon-y, which is perfect for the summer time.

since the base recipe for these bars work so well for both peaches and blueberries, i think i’m going to try them with some other berries, maybe strawberries or raspberries.  yum.

these blueberry crumb bars come together quickly since the crust and the topping are the same.  awesome!  oh and one last note, i accidentally forgot to put the egg in the crust/crumb mixture.  oops!  still it turned out fine and you couldn’t tell that i messed up the recipe.  i love forgiving recipes like this.

the crust/crumb mixture is easiest to make in a food processor (but don’t worry if you don’t have one, just use a large bowl and pastry cutter and spoon and it’ll be all good).  add the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in the bowl of your food processor.  pulse a couple times to mix it all together.

then add the lemon zest and salt.  again pulse to combine.

next add the butter – make sure it’s cold and cubed, along with the egg (as you can see i forgot the egg.  uh oh!)

pulse until the butter and egg gets incoporated into the flour/sugar mixture and it looks crumby.

pour half the crust/crumb mixture into a parchment paper lined 9×13 baking pan.

using your fingers/hands, press down the mixture so that it forms an even crust.

now on to the blueberry part.

mix the sugar, lemon juice, and cornstarch in a medium bowl.

then add the blueberries…

and mix until all the blueberries are covered with the lemon/sugar/cornstarch mixture.  pour the blueberries evenly over the crust.

sprinkle the remaining crust/crumb mixture evenly over the blueberries.

bake the blueberry crumb bars at 375 degrees F for 45 minutes.

once the bars are done baking allow them to cool completely.  i let them sit out at room temperature until they were cool to touch and then put them in the fridge overnight.  it makes it much easier to cut if the bars are nice and cold.

enjoy!

after i cut up the blueberry crumb bars, i put them in cupcake liners to make them easier to pack.  it also made it a ton easier to serve when we were in maine and ready to gobble them up.

other than accidentally leaving out the egg, i didn’t make any changes to the original recipe so i’m sending you over to smitten kitchen for the recipe.