Chef Mik's Berry Bar

Today I am baking some super simple, super yummy fruit bars, these are made with everything from blue berries and cream cheese, lemon, lemon curd, lemon poppy seed, peaches, apricots, strawberries, raspberries, black berries, peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and bananas, chocolate and bananas, chocolate and marshmallow, you name it, as for me I have been saving some nice mixed berry preserves from Sweden called “Queens Blend” that I love and am quite sure will turn out great in this recipe! As for the dough used for this, it’s basically sugar cookie dough (though I have rolled the dough out first then let it sit a couple hours). If you like nuts like I do you might try adding some to your dough as I have here today. To create the top set some dough aside then simply add a little more flour to suck up some of the moisture drying it out a bit, creating that crumbly texture you will need. Keep in mind the more flour you add the more crumble like it will become, add enough and you can even turn it into something of a streusel. Alternatively you may omit any extra flour and simply roll out the dough onto some plastic wrap and fold that onto the preserves and continue on to the oven.

On a side note, I will say I prefer baking these in sheet pans and normally do however today I didn’t…  

Shopping List

Butter

Granulated or baker’s sugar

Confectioners or powdered sugar

Vanilla

Eggs

Lemons

Shaved almonds

Fruit preserves

Flour

My Mad Method

Start of by creaming together 240g butter or margarine, and 3 dl sugar plus 1 TBSP brown or dark brown sugar

Add 2 eggs, 1 at a time mixing each one in well before adding the next

  Add 1 TBSP lemon peal

Add 7.5 dl flour, 1 tsp baking powder, and ¼ - ½ tsp salt, mix to combine but do not over work, I have also added 2.5 dl lightly toasted slivered almonds

When the dough is ready it should be slightly crumbly and not to smooth or fine

Using your hands or rubber spatula cover the bottom of a baking pan with about 2/3rds of the dough roughly 1-2 cm thick

Spread 300-400 g fruit preserves over the dough leaving about 1 cm edge on all sides

Depending on how crumbly you like it adjust the amount of flour add, I am only adding an extra dl

Crumble the remaining dough over the preserves, bake for about 30-40 minutes in a 160c preheated oven, or until lightly browned, when done cool on a wire wrack

For the glaze combine 2.5dl confectioners or powdered sugar sifted, with 2.5 TBSP whole milk, mix to combine. I have added about ¼ tsp vanilla been, optional

Ready to serve!!

 Plated and ready to eat!!