Blueberries. Sugar. Butter. Flour. These are the primary ingredients for these Yummilicious Blueberry Crumb Bars. Each of these ingredients has a mission. A very clear purpose. Take butter, for instance. Butter is a tasty fat. That's how it is used in baking. This is how it enhances every food it encounters. Or sugar. Sugar is a sweetener. There is no mistaking its purpose. It clearly sweetens everything it comes into contact with. There are no questions, no grey areas, no wondering. These ingredients do what they're supposed to do. And very well, I might add. Especially in these Yummilicious Blueberry Crumb Bars.
But what about my purpose? My mission? Why isn't my mission in life as clear as sugar's mission? Why can't I achieve my purpose with the same ease as butter can? How is it that a brainless, ordinary thing like sugar can accomplish so much, so easily; when unique, extraordinary things like human beings find accomplishment so difficult?
I have no answers. I can only send these cosmic questions out into the webosphere. In any event, no matter how much I may be at a loss to accomplish, or to even know, my purpose, it is comforting to witness the perfect accomplishment of purpose of the ingredients for these Yummilicious Blueberry Crumb Bars. I found the recipe on Smitten Kitchen, and after tasting them, I had to add "yummilicious" to the name for obvious reasons.
So, when you are wondering what your purpose is or feel like you can't make things work, just make these blueberry bars and watch how easily and profoundly these simple ingredients all come together.
Yummilicious Blueberry Crumb Bars
Posted on Smitten Kitchen, who adapted it from AllRecipes.com
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup cold unsalted butter (2 sticks or 8 ounces)
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon salt
Zest and juice of one lemon
4 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup white sugar
4 teaspoons cornstarch
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 9×13 inch pan.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, 3 cups flour, and baking powder. Mix in salt and lemon zest. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in the butter and egg. Dough will be crumbly. Pat half of dough into the prepared pan.
3. In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice. 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 before cutting into squares.
Holy crow...looks like another winner...I'm wiping the drool of my monitor!
ReplyDeleteWe crave sugar and butter (fat) because our bodies are hard-wired to cope with the 100s of thousands of years that food was terribly difficult to come by. Only recently is starvation not a problem (in the developed world); in fact, food is abundant. Thus, we are historically-starved and calorie-conserving bodies living in the modern world of Blueberry Crumb Bars. No fair, Mary. You are taking advantage of that discrepancy! (Mmmmmmmm!) - Joel
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