Blueberry Crumb Bars

My favorite thing to do with leftover berries is make crumb bars.  You can use this recipe with really any fruit that you like.  I've used strawberries, raspberries and not a berry but just as amazing if you have peaches that are too ripe to eat.  Today I used blueberries!  Really super easy and super delicious!

Ingredients:

Base dough and Crumb Topping:

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 cups flour

1 cup cold butter

1 egg, beaten

Blueberry Filling:

4 cups fresh blueberries

1/2 cup sugar

4 teaspoons corn starch

3 tablespoons lemon juice

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375 F.   Line a 9x13 baking dish with parchment paper (this make for easy removal and quick clean up) . In a large bowl whisk together sugar, baking powder, salt and flour.  Cut cold butter into the flour mixture using 2 knives until pieces are pea sized.  Stir in the egg to form a chunky dough.  Pat down half of the dough mixture into the baking dish and reserve the other half as a topping for your crumb bars.  In another bowl combine the blueberries, sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice. Spread the blueberry mixture on top of the dough in the pan.  Crumble the remaining flour mixture of the top of the blueberry layer evenly.  Bake 45-55 minutes util slightly browned.  Let cool completely before cutting and serving.

Blueberry Crumb Bars

I just made these today when I noticed a full pint of blueberries untouched in my refrigerator.   Wow these are good!  Sweet and tart all in the same bite!  The addition of the Greek yogurt in the filling is perfect to cut the sweetness of all the sugar in the crust.  These were delicious straight out of the oven or once they are cooled!  You can also substitute any berry that you prefer as well as mixing all the leftover berries together! I will have to try that next time.

Ingredients:

Bottom Crust and Crumble Topping:

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

Pinch of salt

3/4 cup cold butter, cubed

Filling:

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup flour

1/2 cup non-fat greek yogurt

Pinch of salt

2 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Preparation:

Spray a 9x13 baking dish with non-stick cooking spray and Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl combine all crust ingredients (flour, sugar, salt and cubed butter).  Using a hand mixer blend ingredients until the mixture looks like coarse sand.  It should be crumbly not smooth.  Remove 1 cup of the crust mixture and set aside to use as the topping.  Take the remaining crumb mixture and press into the prepared 9x13 baking dish covering the bottom.  Bake the crust in your preheated oven for 10-12 minutes until the crust is firm but should not be brown.

While the crust is baking prepare the filling.  In a bowl whisk the eggs and hen add the sugar, greek yogurt, flour and salt.

When the crust is ready pour the blueberry filling over the top of the hot crust and then take your remaining cup of the crust mixture and sprinkle over the top of the filling.  Bake for 60 min until the top is slightly browned.  Wait about 20 minutes and slice into squares.  Or if you do not have the patience serve by the spoonful hot over ice cream! YUMMY!

Blueberry Pie

Ingredients:

4 cups of frozen blueberries thawed (or fresh)
1/2 cup of sugar
7 tablespoons of cornstarch
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons of juice from thawed blueberries, or grape juice or water
2 pie crusts (I used a frozen deep dish pie crust for the bottom and a ready made rollout crust for the top)

Preparation:

Mix together sugar, cornstarch and cinnamon in a small bowl set aside.  Toss blueberries with lemon juice and reserved blueberry juice.  Pour sugar mixture over blueberries and toss to coat.  Pour blueberry mixture into prepared cold pie crust.  Cover with top crust and seal ends around entire crust.  Make slits in the top of crust to vent.  Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until pie crust is golden brown and blueberry juice is bubbling.  Cool completely before serving.

Mini Blueberry Crescent Pies

 I am forever wanting to use up fresh ingredients so they won't go to waste.  I had a whole pint of blueberries left and I wanted to make something a little different with and of course I wanted it to be VERY easy and  quick.  We always also have refrigerated crescent rolls on hand so I made these mini blueberry crescent pies.  They take just a few minutes to put together and they are very yummy. 

Ingredients:

Filling:
1 cup of blueberries
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Topping:
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place blueberries in a small bowl and toss with sugar, cornstarch and cinnamon, set aside.  Open crescent rolls and cut each roll into 3 parts, you will need to play with the dough a little bit to get as close to a square shape as you can.  Take each square of dough and gently press into a mini muffin tin. (you do not need to make these uniform, free form is best).  Spoon about a teaspoon of the blueberry mixture into each mini dough cup.  Mix brown sugar and cinnamon and top each blueberry cup with the brown sugar mixture.  Bake for about 20  minutes until the dough is browned and the blueberries are bubbling.  Let cool completely before you remove pies from the muffin tins.

Cream Cheese Fruit Pie

I wanted to find a quick and easy dessert to bring to a friend's block party and a friend of mine suggested this.  It was super easy to make, pretty and it set up very quickly which was great since I made it last minute.

Ingredients:

1 8 oz tub Fat Free cream cheese, softened

1 tub light cool whip

1/2 cup sugar

1 low fat graham cracker crust

strawberries sliced

kiwi sliced in half moons

blueberries

raspberries

Preparation:

With a hand mixer beat together softened cream cheese and sugar until completely combined.  Fold in cool whip to cream cheese mixture and spread evenly into prepared pie crust.  Place in refrigerator to set for at last 30 minutes before you add fruit.  Add fruit in any decorative way you would like and place back in refrigerator for another 3-4 hours(overnight would be best) before slicing a serving.  

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Red and White Marble Cake with Blueberry Cream

Great looking cake for a patriotic holiday but delicous anytime of the year.

Ingredients:

1 box of Red Velvet Cake Mix

1 box of White Cake Mix

6 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2 1/2 cups water

1 box of instant vanilla pudding mix (I used the sugar/fat free kind)

1 can of blueberry pie filling

1 cup of light cool whip

Preparation:

Prehat oven to 350 degrees F. and grease a bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray.  Mix both cake mixes in separate bowls according to box directions.  Starting with the red velvet cake batter use about 1/4 of the batter to fill  the bottom of the greased bundt pan.  Next use a 1/4 of the white cake mix and pour it carefully on top of the red velvet cake mix being careful not to mix the batters.  Alternate back and forth between the batters until the bundt pan is filled about 2/3 of the way full. (You will probably have left over cake batter). You do not need to mix the batter together to get the marble effect.  When the cake bakes it will marble itself.  Bake for about an hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center of cake comes out clean.  Let cake cool completely before unmolding.

To make the blueberry cream, mix the blueberry pie filling with the dry pudding mix until combined.  Fold in the cool whip and then place mixture in the refrigerator to set up about an hour. 

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Everyday Sisters Sharing Sundays #4

This week theme for Sharing Sundays is BERRIES!  The perfect theme for summer time.  I love also how you can use berries in all recipes, sweet, savory, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.  Please link up your favorite BERRY recipes.  I hope to get lots of new ideas of how to use; strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and more!!

Our Rules:
1.  Please become a follower of our blog.
2.  Please share a link back to your actual recipe post, not to your main blog page.
3.  Please link back to our blog so others can join in the fun.
4.  Leave us a comment about what recipe you are linking up.
5. Have fun!

Now for the Featured Chocolate recipes from last week!  The following recipes got the most page views this past week!  Thank you to everyone for linking up Everyday Sisters Sharing Sundays.  We really love this addition to our weekly blog posts.  It's been so much fun getting to know you all better.

Rolo Brownie Bites with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting by Cook Lisa Cook


Chocolate Cinnamon Cobbler by Lark's Country Heart


Rocky Road Bars by Mostly Food and Crafts


Toasted Marshmallow and Chocolate Malt Layer Cake by Baking Me

Chocolate and Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies by
The Weekend Gourmet


Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes by The Farm Girl


Now your BERRY recipes are next........

Bluberry Pie Stuffed Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Happy 4th of July!!!

I was trying to find a new RED, WHITE and BLUE dessert to make for the 4th of July and I thought this was really a cool idea.  RED velvet cake, BLUEberry pie and WHITE cream cheese frosting YUM!  It was absolutely delicious too.  I will be posting the blueberry pie recipe later this week or if you want you could use a store bought pie.

*Next I'm going to try different flavors of Pie/Cake combinations since it was such a big hit!!

Ingredients:

1 box of red velvet cake mix

3 eggs

1 1/4 cup water

1/3 oil

1 blueberry pie baked and cooled

1 container of cream cheese frosting

Preparation:

Prepare cake mix according to package directions.  Grease a large round cake pan very well (a deep pan if you have one).  Pour 1/3 of cake mix in the bottom of the pan.  Then take the baked and cooled blueberry pie and flip it face down into the cake pan (remove pie tin from bottom of pie).  Pour the remaining cake batter ontop of the pie until it's completely covered. 

VERY IMPORTANT!! Place the cake pan on a cookie sheet covered in foil before baking.  Unless you have a very deep cake pan the cake batter will most likely run over the top and pour over onto your oven if you don't have a pan underneath to catch it.

Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour.  Check cake every 5-10 minutes after 45 minutes of baking.  When a toothpick insterted in the middle of cake comes out clean it's done.

Let the cake cool COMPLETELY before trying to unmold it.  You can run a knife around the outside edge of the cake pan to loosen it before it's cooled.  

Once cooled turn pie stuffed cake out on a flat platter.  Frost generously with cream cheese frosting.  You will need to do an initial crumb coat of frosting and refrigerate until set and then finish with a final layer of cream cheese frosting to make smooth.

*Note - it's easier to slice neatly if the pie stuffed cake is cold from the refrigerator. 

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Award Winning Blueberry Cheesecake

 This recipe is from my mother. It has won awards. My sister Susan entered it in her Girl Scout bake-off contest and it won first place!! Hey an award is an award. Although it was actually a cherry cheesecake, not blueberry. My son Jack loves blueberry topping so, we switched it up. But you still get a very rich and creamy cheesecake. The recipe is very interesting since you bake it for a short time at a high heat and then let it sit in the turned off oven for an hour an a half to set up Of course you can make your own graham cracker crust and put it in a spring form pan but I didn't want to be bothered with all of that. I instead opted for a  prepared graham cracker pie crust since it's faster and easier.

Ingredients:

1 lb. Philadelphia cream cheese (2 8 oz blocks)
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup sour cream
1 prepared graham cracker pie crust
1 can of blueberry Comstock pie filling (original recipe made with Cherry)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees (yes, 425). In a mixer blend all ingredients. Pour into crust. Bake for 20 minutes. Turn off heat and open oven door slightly. Let bake for an additional 1 1/2 hours. Cover top with Comstock pie filling of your choice. Refrigerate overnight (don't skip the refrigerating step.  It needs to fully chill to be set).

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