These Blueberry Crumb Bars are made with a real blueberry filling (no canned pie filling here!) and a buttery crust and crumbly topping!
I’m finally back home after a long weekend at a conference in Salt Lake City spent surrounded by other incredible bloggers and plenty of incredible food.
The trip was amazing, minus the TSA pat down just before the flight home because a bag of chili that I tried to bring home from the conference alerted as “explosive” during a TSA check.
That was… awkward. 😳
Needless to say the chili was in fact not explosive, but I am a little concerned about eating it now. This is why I’m a desserts person. A from-scratch baker, that way I don’t have to worry about my food alerting as explosive.
These blueberry crumb bars are 100% from-scratch and 100% non-explosive.
We start with a homemade blueberry pie filling for the juicy center layer of these blueberry crumb bars. You can use fresh or frozen berries, you’ll cook them in a saucepan with some sugar and corn starch until the filling is thick and then add more fresh berries, a pat of butter, and some vanilla extract for flavor.
Both the crust and the buttery, cobbled topping are made from the same shortbread-esque cookie mixture to keep things simple (and delicious).
We’ll make this crumbly cookie base and topping in our food processor, you can use a pastry cutter instead, but the food processor is going to be the quickest and easiest way to do this. The mixture should be very crumbly, and you’ll use your hands to pat half of it evenly into the bottom of a baking dish, then layer your filling, then top everything off with the remaining crumbly cookie mixture.
Once these blueberry crumb bars have finished baking and are still hot, they will be hard to cut. The filling won’t be very solid and the crumble will actually crumble apart if it’s still warm. In order for these bars to be sliceable, you will need to let them cool for about 2-3 hours.
…That being said, I am 100% for scooping them out of the pan with the spoon and enjoying them warm (or even topped with ice cream!). Yes, they will totally fall apart if you do that, but they are so good warm it’s worth it.
Enjoy!
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How to Make Blueberry Crumb Bars
Blueberry Crumb Bars
Ingredients
Blueberry Filling
- 5 cups blueberries divided (840g)
- 1/2 cup sugar (100g)
- 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 Tablespoon butter
Crumb Base/Topping
- 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (405g)
- 3/4 cup sugar (150g)
- ¼ cup light brown sugar, tightly packed (50g)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes (227g)
- 1 large egg yolk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and lightly grease a 9x13 glass baking dish. Set aside.
- In small saucepan, combine 3 cups blueberries (505g), sugar, cornstarch, salt, and lemon juice over medium-low heat.
- Stir frequently until the blueberries release their juices, and the mixture is very liquidy (about 5-8 mins).
- Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
- Boil (still stirring constantly) for 1 minutes and remove from heat. Add remaining 2 cups of blueberries, butter, and vanilla extract and stir until butter is melted. Allow to cool while you prepare your crust.
- To prepare your cookie crust, combine flour, sugars, baking powder, cornstarch, and salt in a food processor and pulse briefly until combined.
- Sprinkle your butter pieces evenly over the dry ingredients and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- Add egg and vanilla extract and pulse again until mixture just begins to cling together.
- Pour 1/2 of your cookie batter into the bottom of your prepared pan and use your hands or the back of a spoon to press evenly into the bottom of the pan to form a crust.
- Pour your cooled blueberry filling evenly over the crust.
- Use your hands to sprinkle the remaining crust mixture evenly over the top of the filling.
- Transfer to the oven and bake on 350F (175C) for 55-60 minutes or until the top of the blueberry crumb bars is golden brown.
- Allow to cool completely (2-3 hours) before slicing and serving. If you prefer to enjoy these warm the crumb bars WILL fall apart if sliced before they have cooled and set, so plan to use a spoon!
Christine says
Your recipes never disappoint! Made this earlier today with fresh picked blueberries – YUM! These aren’t going to last long 🙂
Sam says
Thank you so much, Christine! I am so glad you enjoyed the blueberry crumb bars. 🙂
Robin Morgan says
Can you advise on the storage capability of these? I was going to use them as a part of a care package that will take a couple of weeks to get where it’s going, and wondered about how long they can last at room and higher temps. Thank you!
Sam says
Unfortunately I’m not sure that I’d recommend these for a care package that would spend that much time in transit. Not only would I worry that they bars would get a bit soggy after all that time (because of the fruit), I am not certain that the fruit would hold up very well after all that time. Sorry, Robin!
Ellen says
I haven’t made these yet, but to the poster who asked about using her hands to mix the dough, don’t. The warmth of your hands will soften the butter and will change the texture of the crumbs. If you you don’t have a food processor or pastry blender you can use two table knives one in each hand. Cut through the dough mixture using knife blades in opposite directions until you have coarse crumbs then add your egg. It will take a little longer but it works.
Janiya says
Can I use my hands instead of a food processor? if yes then how?
Sam says
Hi Janiya! I really don’t recommend doing it by hand because it is very dry dough and will be very difficult to bring it together. If you need to do it by hand, you can use a pastry cutter, but be warned, it is QUITE the arm workout. 🙂
Mahika says
Is it ok if I leave out the egg for the crumble/base?
-Thanks
Sam says
Hi Mahika! I don’t recommend it, but you may be able to get away with using some heavy cream instead. Again, I haven’t tried it so I don’t know how it would work. 🙂
Sam Johnson says
Any suggestions for a non-acidic substitute for the 1 Tbs lemon juice?
Sam says
I would probably just leave it out.
Jan Patrick says
Can I add a cheese cake layer
Sam says
Hi Jan, I’m sorry but I haven’t tried that with this recipe so I can’t advise.
Dawn Hanna says
I’m cooking this RIGHT NOW. Can’t wait to taste it! My boys have enjoyed all your recipes and I love making them!
Sam says
Thank you so much, Dawn! 😊
Lorley says
Also, would you mash the three cups of berries while cooking then the two cups added at the end would stay whole?
Sam says
I don’t mash them, the second pic in the post is how they look after cooking but before I add the additional whole berries. Most of them do tend to burst open and they become very soft, but I don’t do any additional mashing.
Lorley says
Do you use a pat of butter in the filling? I don’t see that listed in the filling ingredients. Can’t wait to try this. Love your recipes.
Carol says
I was wondering that in the directions it says quartered blueberries, does that mean cutting each and every blueberry into 4ths?
Sam says
Whoops, the blueberries do not need to be quartered! You can use them whole, sorry about that, I fixed it! Thanks for pointing that out to me, Carol!
Elayne says
Hey this looks amazing if I wanted to use raspberries instead, would it be just as simple as just swapping one fruit for the other? Or would any of the proportions be different?
Mikaru86 says
Those look delicious. They remind me of the Streuselstreifen (streusel/crumbs strips) that I like to make (I even made a recipe post on imgur for those a while ago: https://imgur.com/gallery/OnSPo). I’ve never tried them with blueberries though. I usually use strawberry or peach jam instead. But making your own filling instead of using jam is probably even more delicious. So I’ll have to try them some time 🙂