Blackberry Pie Bars

The blackberry picking adventure confirmed the fact that I am absolutely useless at estimating anything with the U.S. measurement system.  Want to eyeball 50mL?  No problem.  Need to weigh out approximately 180g of guanidine hydrochloride?  I’m your girl.  Looking for three cups of blackberries?  <chirping crickets>  I just kept picking and picking while we were there to try to ensure that I would have enough to bake a recipe or two, but I just wasn’t sure that I had enough.

When I returned home, I looked through my collection of recipes in Evernote.  Since I was bringing this in to the lab, I wanted to avoid any kind of pies and cakes – anything which involves forks and plates.  Food to share in lab is far easier if it can be picked up with the hands on the way out the door to a seminar or to drop by and ask the PIs a question.  When I stumbled across the concept of putting blackberry pies into a bar form, I was sold.  The only potential problem?  The recipe calls for six cups of blackberries, which seemed like a LOT… and I wasn’t sure that I had enough from my day of berry picking.  Before I started mixing together any other ingredients, I pulled out my measuring cups and started doling out blackberries, one cup at a time.  However, the six cups required for the blackberry pie bars barely made a dent in the box of blackberries I bought home.  I never intended to be baking for a full week… it was just a U.S. volumetric estimation FAIL.  But a very, very yummy fail at that, since I couldn’t let all those blackberries go to waste, could I?  These were a fantastic hit, but very rich, so cut the bars small!  Stay tuned the rest of the week for what I made with the massive heap of leftover blackberries…

Blackberry Pie Bars
adapted from Joy the Baker

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour (crust)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (crust)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups chilled unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups sugar (filling)
• 1 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (filling)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• pinch salt
• 6 cups fresh blackberries

Directions;

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.  Grease a 9 x 13-inch baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.
2. To make the crust, combine the sugar, flour, salt, and butter in an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.  Beat the ingredients on medium speed until the mixture looks dry and crumbly.
3. Reserve 1 1/2 cups of the crust mixture to use as a topping.  Press the remaining mixture into the bottom of the pan with fingertips.  Bake the crust for 12 – 15 minutes until golden brown.
4. While crust is cooling, prepare the filling.  Whisk the eggs in a large bowl and add the sugar, sour cream, flour, lemon juice, and salt.  Fold in the blackberries.
5. Spread the mixture over the crust.  Sprinkle the crust mixture over the filling.
6. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, until the top is lightly browned.  Cool for 1 hour before slicing and serving.