Blueberry Crumb Bars

After a couple of weeks of gorging myself on fresh berries, I have turned back to baking and cooking with them. I adapted this from AllRecipes to include more whole grains, with whole wheat pastry flour, spelt flour, and ground almonds. I am rather partial to the combination of almonds, lemon and blueberries, so I added a bit of lemon zest and juice and some almond extract as well. Here is the recipe with my adaptations:

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 cups total flour: I used 1/2 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 cup almond meal, 1 cup spelt flour, and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 cup cold butter (two sticks), cut into small pieces
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Zest and juice of 1 small lemon
• 4 cups fresh or frozen/thawed blueberries
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch pan.
2. In a medium bowl (or in a food processor if you are lazy like me) stir together 1 cup sugar, 3 cups flour, and baking powder, salt, and lemon juice. Blend in the butter and egg (use a pastry cutter or a fork if not using a food processor). Dough will be crumbly - don't overmix in the processor or you will end up with pie crust. Pat half of dough into the prepared pan.
3. In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and almond extract. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely (it's hard to wait, I know) before cutting into squares. 
 

Mmmm, crumbles

 P.S. Don't these photos look nice? I had the opportunity to use a DSLR for the afternoon and did a lot of experimenting with aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. It is so nice to be able to use a higher ISO and still get good results - with my point-and-shoot, it's rare that I can even go to ISO 200 and get a decent shot. I am currently saving up for a new camera and am deciding whether to get a DSLR (pros: awesome photos, tons of manual controls, cons: big, bulky) or just a better point-and-shoot (pros: can carry it around all the time, cons: not nearly as many control options). Decisions, decisions. Look for more DSLR experiments in the future!