blue berry pie bars

Blue berries are packed with lots of Vitamin C, E and anti-oxidants. They are known to be "brain-food" and can be helpful for those who are combating body fats.
Not to mention these indigo-painted berries look so appetizing and easy to chew -- Once you pop, you can't stop. I am not sure whether these health benefits are retained after being cooked, anyhow it does not stop me from introducing them as the "lead character" today.

My friends (S and G) and I decided to meet for the last time before the preggie goes on maternity leave/ confinement. So what better way can girlfriends spend time together on a weekend afternoon? Yes, we baked.

S, being our shifu (master) whipped out her mobile phone and introduced us the website Foodgawker.
It is a platform to search for food blogger recipes and even if you are not a kitchen person, you can feast your eyes with those pretty pictures of food. :)

After browsing Foodgawker for some time at the supermarket (and being constantly distracted by the random mascots promoting their items), we decided to grab 3 boxes of blueberries and challenge the blueberry pie bars recipe (we made cookies too but I shall leave that for another post).

The strawberries were on sale but S opined we should stick to blueberries as strawberries contain more moisture and we might be setting ourselves up for failure if the pie turned out to be too moist.

Recipe extracted from Kleinworth & Co.

Ingredients:

Crust & Topping
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
pinch salt
1 1/2 sticks cold butted (cubed)

Filling
3 cups fresh blueberries
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup sour cream
pinch salt

Steps:
1. Grease 9x13 glass baking dish- set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Add flour, sugar, salt & cubed butter to mixing bowl, beat until combined & crumbly.
[But I continued until it became creamy...forgot that the crust should be crumbly!]

4.Take 1 cup of mixture & set aside. Take remaining mixture & firmly press into your baking dish, covering the bottom.
5.Bake 15 minutes.
6. While crust is baking- whisk eggs in a large bowl.
7. Add sugar, sour cream, flour & salt.
8. Gently fold in blueberries. Set aside.
[Look at the happy berries swimming in the mix!]

9. When crust is ready - remove from oven & add filling.
[Remember to bake the bottom crust before adding the swimming blueberries!!]

10. Gently spooning over the top of the crust.
11. Sprinkle with remaining crust mixture you had set aside.
[I over-beaten the mix and it became creamy. Thus the texture of the top crust.] 

12. Bake 1 hour or until top is lightly browned.
[Meanwhile, you could do a lot of things in an hour with your girlfriends..such as napping and going into stone mode. We could smell the sweet crust when the pie was baking in the oven. Berries bursting (literally) in happiness under the heat. Pure excitement!]

13. Cool before serving if eating alone. If serving warm add a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.
[We didn't have ice cream but it's already oh-so-yummy!]

blue berry pie bars

Masak-thoughts: Shopping for ingredients alone requires certain level of knowledge and some calculation. For example, I didn't know there are so many different types of flour *noob*.
S told me that the ang moh (western-style) pastries are usually very sweet, especially so when the recipes are created by the Caucasians due to taste preferences. So take note and adjust the ingredients to your liking (we reduced the sugar by about 20% or even more..)!
Oh yes, it doesn't matter if you beat the crust mix for too long that it turns creamy instead of crumbly, it still tasted good, or so I think. It was also less messy when we cut and packed the pie into bars (but of course the top layer was not as aesthetically pleasing).
The sour blueberries complement the sweet crust, totally yums! ^.^ I would not have attempted the recipe without the ladies!