Sweet Treat Tuesday-Blueberry Crumb Bars (or Blueberry Crumble at our house)

I made this on Memorial Day to take to a cookout we had been invited to. I am so glad I did! It is delicious, kind of like blueberry muffins in a bar form. I told my boys that I was making blueberry crumb bars and they started calling it blueberry crumble. Now if you've ever heard of the children's book The Gruffalo, you'll understand why they wanted to call it this. The Gruffalo is a great book and my boys love it. Definitely a favorite in our house. I won't go into the whole story, but it talks about a crumble at the end of the book, so they got a kick out of calling this blueberry crumble.

OK, if I didn't lose you in my rambling please make this recipe. It is absolutely worth it. I will note that the original recipe calls to mix both sticks of butter in the crumble mixture, but I only put one in and didn't remember until after I had assembled the crumble, something to do with my power going off as my mixer was mixing the crumb mixture. So instead, I put pats of butter on top just to make sure we got both sticks of butter in. But, I do think that it would be just fine with less butter.

Blueberry Crumb Bars (Blueberry Crumble)
slightly adapted from Jam Hands

About 16 servings


Ingredients:
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup butter, softened and divided (2 sticks)
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 pinch ground cinnamon (optional)
4 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup white sugar
3 teaspoons cornstarch

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 9x13 inch pan.

In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, 3 cups flour, and baking powder. Mix in salt and cinnamon, if desired. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in one stick of butter and egg. Dough will be crumbly. Pat half of dough into the prepared pan.

In another bowl, stir together the sugar and cornstarch. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer. Cut second stick of butter into small squares/pats and spread out over the top of the crumb mixture. (You can decrease the amount of butter if you desire.)

Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares.