An experiment gone awright

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to sneak in the kitschy title here simply because over the years I have had so many experiments gone awry. This time however, something quite magical came about. It all started because of the need, as many of us have, for dessert. A dinner party for one of my regular clients was looking like it was going to be a culinary success. Smoked salmon blinis and zucchini fritters; check. Butternut squash soup; check. Roasted fillet of beef with port reduction; check. And then, all of a sudden, 4 more guests arrived and those coconut macaroons I had made earlier were just not going to be substantial enough for the mood of the dinner party. With no form of chocolate anywhere to be found, I couldn’t do a nice soufflé or cake. What to do? Well, my first thought went to berries, I have a go-to cobbler recipe that is fool proof and doesn’t require much that isn’t in most pantries. However, since this was a fancy dinner party, we decided that a rustic cobbler wouldn’t be quite as appropriate as other options. Don’t get me wrong, a giant heap of cobbler dumped in a bowl, perhaps with a scoop of vanilla gelato, is top of my dessert list. We needed something a little more presentable for this instance though.

Bars were the next thing that came to mind, lemon to be specific. But alas, I had less than two hours until dinner with still quite a bit of work to do and lemon bars take a considerable amount of time and detail. Since the client can only eat blueberries, and there just so happened to be a Costco sized container of fresh blueberries in the fridge, I knew I had to go with that. I decided to make a blueberry bar, something I had never done before. I went with my standard lemon bar crust since it is 3 ingredients and takes about 2 minutes to prepare and get cooking. The berries I knew I would have to cook, so I threw most of the container into a sauce pan with sugar and some sliced lemons. Since I didn’t have time to let the berries cool enough for them to thicken properly, I threw in some flour and then added the remainder of the whole berries. Then I simply poured the whole thing over the crust, threw on a crumble topping and popped it in the oven, able to do nothing more than cross my fingers, and toes, that this would be an edible product. The tray was picked clean by the end of the evening, I guess I did alright.



Blueberry bars

For crust:
1 ¼ cup all purpose flour
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
Pinch of kosher salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9 x 9 baking dish by either spraying thoroughly with non stick spray or laying foil to lift out. This makes for easy removal from pan and is highly recommended. To do this, take a long piece of foil and lay it lengthwise in the pan. Then take another piece and lay it crosswise in pan, then spray with non stick spray. This allows gripping the foil and simply lifting the entire concoction from the pan to let cool and then easily cut. Combine all ingredients in a food processor and pulse about 10 times, until ingredients come together and mixture turns pale yellow. Dump into prepared pan and using the bottom of a glass or a measuring cup, pat mixture evenly over pan, pushing into corners and slightly up the sides. Bake for 20 minutes, until just starting to brown. Set aside until ready to use

For Filling and Crumble Topping

1 lb fresh blueberries
¾ cup sugar
2 whole lemons cut in half, seeds removed as best as possible
¼ tsp kosher salt
1 cup 3 Tbs all purpose flour, divided
¾ cup brown sugar, lightly packed
½ stick unsalted butter, cut into small chunks and softened

Place ¾ of the blueberries, the sugar, salt, 3 Tbs flour and lemons in a medium saucepan and add ¼ of water. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, until blueberries are broken down and sauce starts to thicken. Remove from heat and add the remaining blueberries, stirring to combine. Let cool 30 minutes. Combine remaining flour, brown sugar and butter in bowl and combine with fingers until ingredients start to come together and look crumbly. Pour blueberry mixture over crust and sprinkle crumble evenly over entire surface. Bake 30-40 minutes, until blueberries start to bubble and topping in browned. Remove from pan if using foil bed, or place pan on cooling rack. Let rest 15 minutes, then cut into squares and serve. Makes approximately 16 two inch squares.