Blueberry Pie Bars
These blueberry pie bars are the perfect way to showcase blueberries. They have all the components of a pie, but are so much easier to make. The bars have a buttery crust, juicy blueberries and a sweet crumble topping.
Blueberries are one of those ingredients that I wish I could always have a fresh supply of in my refrigerator year-round. I love being able to add fresh, juicy berries in my pancakes, muffins, yogurt, and desserts like these blueberry pie bars.
When blueberries are in season, I can’t stop buying them.
I buy a big box, which is great, except I end up with way too many berries so I have to find lots of ways to use them up because they go bad so quickly. So, I eat a ton of them, bake with them and then they are all gone, and I want more. So, the cycle starts all over again. Heehee.
With my recent blueberry haul, I decided to make pie bars. Dessert bars are so fun to make and easier than making the regular pie or cookies and I thought blueberry bars would work really well.
I found a recipe from Pink Parsley who adapted it from The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather. I played around with it and I really love how it turned out.
They’re a cinch to put together, the bottom crust was so buttery, the middle was chock full of blueberries and the top was a generous spread of crumble. I love crumble!
Notes about Making the Crust
- You only need four ingredients for the crust: butter, sugar, flour and a little bit of salt.
- The key to achieving a buttery and tender crust is to start with cold butter. Just like making pie dough, you cut the cold butter into the flour until the mixture is crumbly.
- I like to use my food processor to make the dough since it makes it easy to cut the butter into the flour. You can also do it by hand with a pastry cutter.
- You’ll press most of the crust mixture into the bottom of the baking dish, but reserve ½ cup to use as the topping for the pie bars.
Tips for Making the Filling
The filling is easy to make – you just need one bowl.
- You whisk eggs and then mix them with sugar, sour cream, flour, and almond extract.
- Add the flour, mix and then fold in the blueberries.
Once the bars are baked just let them cool and then slice them into bars.
If you’ve been following along you already know about my pie-hating family. I wondered if they’d like these pie bars because they did like the mini lattice pies I made. Well, they went back to their pie-hating ways and wouldn’t touch these blueberry pie bars, which was fine. The fiancé and I got the whole batch and he loved them!
More Pie-Inspired Recipes to Try
Blueberry Pie Bars
Ingredients
Crust and Topping
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, chilled
Pie Filling
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 3/4 cup flour
- 1/2 tsp almond extract
- 16 oz fresh blueberries
Instructions
- To make the crust and topping, preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 8x8 inch baking pan.
- Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Cut the butter into 1/2-inch cubes, and add to the flour mixture. Process until the butter is evenly distributed but the mixture is still crumbly, 30-60 seconds.
- Reserve 1 1/2 cups of the mixture to use as the topping. Press the remaining mixture into the bottom of the pan.
- To make the filling, whisk the eggs in a large bowl, then add the sugar, sour cream, flour, and almond extract. Gently fold in the berries and spoon the mixture over the crust. Sprinkle the remaining flour mixture evenly over the filling, and bake 45 to 55 minutes, until top turns a golden brown.
- Cool at least 1 hour before cutting into bars, or scoop out of the pan to serve cobbler-style.
I’ve made this maybe a dozen times now, it’s such a delicious recipe and works well with lactose free ingredients.
We’re so glad you love this recipe!
Hi! Would it be possible to make these bars a head of time (like a week before the event date that they are needed for) and just freeze them? Would they taste as good? What do you recommend? Need them for a baby shower Saturday, but would love to make them ahead of time if possible! Thanks!!
Hi Anna, I’ve never tried freezing them so I don’t know how they would taste after. I’m not so sure this one would freeze well.
They freeze great! They are delicious, and the texture and taste are the same.
Oh, that’s great! Thanks so much for letting us know!
In some of you r other recipes u use plain flour and baking power and baking soda can’t u just use self raising flour imstead
I don’t generally have self rising flour laying around. Also it depends because self raising flour has a very specific ratio of baking powder and soda so you can’t really just substitute unless the ratio is the exact same.
Just wanted to let you know I made these bars and absolutely fell in love! They’re so very unique and I love how I could switch in any type of fruit. Thanks for the great treat 🙂
https://lifessimplemeasures.blogspot.com/2012/07/blueberry-pie-bars.html
I love easy pie bar type recipes, especially in the summer with the abundance of fresh fruit.
this looks good!
i’d love to try but there aren’t fresh blueberries in my country.is it okay if i use frozen blueberries?
I think that is okay
Made it last… AMAZING!!!!!
So glad you liked them!
These were more like a custard bar rather than pie and I didn’t think they were as sweet as I thought they were going to be…They are good with a cup of coffee 🙂 Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I think most of the sweetness comes from the crumble on top.
These look amazing!
Thanks! I loved how they tasted. Maybe because of all the crumble topping. I could eat almost anything with crumble topping.
Aw man, those look so good! We went blueberry picking a few weeks ago and I was searching for ways to use them. I ended up making this: https://mamasparkles.blogspot.com/2011/05/blueberry-cake.html and this: https://mamasparkles.blogspot.com/2011/06/did-somebody-say-breakfast.html
I wish I had more blueberries left over to make these though!
Oh your cake looks yummy. Blueberry picking! Oh I need to convince the fiancee to go! I love strawberry picking Carlsbad, I didn’t know about the blueberry picking Temecula.
Yum! Blueberries are so good for you this must be health food!
Haha. That is one way to look at it.
Haha I love the conversation from your boyfriend, that’s always a good sign!
These look great, is the middle layer cheesecake like?
A little bit. It’s more moist than cake, but not as wet as a pie filling. So I guess cheesecake like texture is the best way to describe it.