Blackberry Raspberry Pie Bars
It’s still summer right? The weather here in Boston keeps having mood swings, but as I’ve said multiple times these past few weeks, I’m literally grasping to the last minutes of summer this year. The second I saw these bars come up in my Google Reader, I knew I wanted to make them.
You see, I’m not really a pie person. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good pie, I just don’t enjoy making them. Just look at my blog. I’ve posted over a hundred cupcake recipes, more than 60 brownies and bars recipes, nearly 70 cookie recipes, and only 15 posts in my pies and tarts tag. Pathetic, right? I’m hoping to find some pie mojo this fall, but for now these pie bars more than do the job.
In fact, they’re almost too perfect of a replacement for an actual pie. For starters, you don’t have to deal with rolling a pie crust. Add to that the fact that these little guys are portable. I don’t know about you, but my desserts are always leaving the house with me to go somewhere. Whether it’s work or a friend’s house, if all these desserts didn’t leave the house, Hubby and I would each be about 200 pounds heavier than we are…
I decided to use fresh raspberries and blackberries in the recipe but I love that it actually calls for frozen berries. That means you could make these bars any time of the year! And you can bet that I’ll be making these come February when I’m so sick of winter and craving a taste of summertime.
I ended up baking mine for about 15 extra minutes and the center pieces were still a bit underbaked. Turns out those underbaked pieces were my favorites though!
Blackberry Raspberry Pie Bars
Yield: 24 bars
Ingredients:
Crust and Topping
3 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled
Fruit Filling
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
3/4 cup flour
pinch salt
zest of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp almond extract
32 oz total of a mix of fresh or frozen berries, thawed and drained if using frozen
Directions:
To make the crust and topping, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.
Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse a few times to mix. Cut the butter into 1/2-inch cubes, and add to the flour mixture. Process until the butter is evenly distributed but the mixture is still crumbly, 30-60 seconds.
Reserve 1 1/2 cups of the mixture to use as the topping. Press the remaining mixture into the bottom of the pan, and bake 12-15 minutes. Cool for at least 10 minutes.
To make the filling, whisk the eggs in a large bowl, then add the sugar, sour cream, flour, salt, lemon zest, and almond extract. Gently fold in the berries and spoon the mixture over the crust. Sprinkle the remaining flour mixture evenly over the filling, and bake 45 to 55 minutes.
Cool at least 1 hour before cutting into bars, or scoop out of the pan to serve cobbler-style.
Recipe from The Pastry Queen, as seen on Pink Parsley
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
it looks delicious!
Beautiful cake! I can’t get over the ending either, too soon!
beantownbaker — December 26th, 2013 @ 10:56 am
Right! It happens every year, but I feel like this year flew by especially quickly.
Wow – super gorgeous!! I’m so glad you love this cake as much as I do! Happy Christmas and almost New Years, doll!!
beantownbaker — December 26th, 2013 @ 10:58 am
Happy Holidays to you too!
This cake looks so beautiful and I bet it tastes divine 🙂 can’t wait to try it!
definitely perfect for new years! i can’t believe this year is almost over, either- crazy!
this is perfect for our holiday-the Florida strawberries have been so sweet – thank you
beantownbaker — January 2nd, 2014 @ 1:31 pm
I wish I lived somewhere where the strawberry season was longer than a few weeks…
I was just thinking, what if we made this w/pink champagne?
beantownbaker — January 2nd, 2014 @ 1:30 pm
I think it would be great with pink champagne!
I know what you mean we grew up and lived in Michigan all our lives. When our kids were little I would take them to the farms to pick blueberries, raspberries and apples. The strawberry season was always short or not at all due to the wet springs we so often had. But we did get farm fresh ones at our local farm market. I now live in Central Florida where I’m learning so much about fresh grown foods. We live a few blocks from Oviedo where DUDA farms are. They are known especially for their celery but so many other fresh veggies. We have a few local farms where you can pick strawberries and blueberries. The gulf coast really has a lot of strawberry farms. On Tuesday our local Publix store had Florida fresh strawberries on sale. I just cleaned them last night (I think my husband took about 1/2 of them to work) We are fortunate, but I still miss Michigan and all the farming communities in our area.
beantownbaker — January 4th, 2014 @ 10:38 am
Wow – I bet things in FL are very different than Michigan! We can usually get strawberries at the farmers market as well. But again, it’s SUCH a short season. Last year we missed it completely. I’m still adjusting to the different seasonal timing in Ohio vs what it was in Boston. We always make a point to pick strawberries, blueberries, peaches, and apples. Peaches and strawberries are two of my favorite summertime fruits.
Woah, thanks a bunch for sharing!
I made this cake for my girlfriend’s surprise birthday party, and it was freaking delicious. Granted this was my first cake I have ever baked, but there wasn’t enough frosting to cover the whole thing and keep part of the actual cake from showing through. I don’t even like cake, and this was bomb!
This CAKE IS THE BOMB!!!!, I found this online in 2014. I showed it to my twin sister, I said, I won’t this for our B-Day, but we didn’t have it until September 2015, and again this year. So delicious, my son Loves it as well, we’re making it tomorrow December 28th 2015 for his birthday. Yummmmy!