I absolutely love it when a recipe comes together. Especially a baked recipe.
You see…I’ve never been much of a baker. I can certainly do it (and I do, every now and then), but I wouldn’t say that I’m a great baker.
Part of the problem is – I don’t do it often enough to be great at it. I suppose if I spent more time reading and researching on how to make the perfect crust, or how to get a cake perfectly done in the middle without over-cooking the sides, I could learn. But, I prefer to spend my time cooking instead and tweaking recipes up to the very last moment before I take that first bite.
My biggest problem with baking is, that I can’t tweak it as I go. I’m a big tweaker.
With baking – once you’ve put all the ingredients together and you pop it in the oven, you.are.done.
Sometimes I just close my eyes, cross my fingers and hope for the best.
I’ve ruined at least a recipe or two by over mixing, over kneading and far too many to count, by over baking. Baking seems to rely so much on the perfect measurement of ingredients (too much flour! too little flour!), the consistent heat of an oven (it’s too hot! it’s too cold!), the temperature of the ingredients (should it be room temperature? softened in the microwave? straight from the refrigerator?). Who knows! It’s all very confusing. Yeesh!
I always think of baking as somewhat unforgiving.
Yet, I’d seen a recipe for Cherry Pie Bars on Pinterest recently, and I couldn’t resist the delicious looking icing droozled over the top. That day, not in the mood for cherry, I happened upon a can of Blackberry Pie Filling. Now, that sounded yummy! So, I grabbed that can off the shelf, and ran home to make it!
Can I just say that this recipe was totally worth the trip? No tweaking required. I almost felt cheated. Almost.
Enjoy!
Blackberry Pie Bars
Ingredients
Cake Preparation
- 1 cup butter softened (room temperature)
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 4 eggs room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 21 ounce can blackberry pie filling
Glaze Preparation
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
- Cream together butter and sugar in a mixer. Add eggs one at a time, continuing to beat well. Add vanilla and almond extract.
- In a separate bowl, combine flour and salt and stir until thoroughly mixed. Add dry ingredients to the cream mixture and mix until thoroughly combined and creamy.
- Spread 3/4 of the batter mixture into a greased 9x13 pan. Spread and top with pie filling, and drop the remaining batter on top in a random pattern.
- Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. Cool on wire rack.
- Combine glaze ingredients and drizzle over the bars.
Recipe slightly modified from The Recipe Critic.
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