North Carolina’s blueberry season has been a delicious one, but I’m singing the blues because it’s wrapping up for the year. The blueberry bushes on our farm produced prolifically for a month or so starting in mid-June and, during those much-anticipated weeks (we fantasize year-round about bountiful blueberry harvests) we ate our fill of fresh berries. We also baked them into treats such as blueberry pancakes and our favorite baked blueberry confection: blueberry-walnut breakfast bars.
I love these blueberry-walnut breakfast bars so much because they make a wholesome and delicious breakfast (or mid-day or midnight) snack and have the added advantage of holding their flavor and quality flawlessly in the freezer. Since freezing blueberry-walnut breakfast bars is such a great way to be able to enjoy blueberries all year long, I was really upset this year when I realized that I hadn’t managed to get any into the freezer this summer. My family had eaten every single batch up!
Fast forward to the farmers’ market, where I gleefully bought quarts of locally-grown blueberries. I promptly transformed them into enough breakfast bars to make my family’s blueberry wishes come true for months to come!
Blueberry-Walnut Breakfast Bars
Time Required: 15 minutes active, 1 hour total
Yields 12 generously-sized bars
Bake in 9” X 9” baking dish
Ingredients:
For the filling:
2 Cups blueberries
2 TBSP sugar
2 TBSP water
1 TBSP lemon juice (either fresh or from concentrate)
1/4 tsp corn starch for thickening
For the crust and topping
1 Cup all-purpose flour
1 Cup rolled oats (I use Quaker Old-Fashioned oatmeal, but quick-cook oats would work too)
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup melted butter
Directions:
For filling:
1. In medium saucepan, combine blueberries, sugar, water and lemon juice.
2. Bring to a boil at medium heat, then reduce heat and simmer filling mixture until thickened, about 10 minutes.
3. Remove thickened filling from heat.
For crust/topping:
1. In mixer, combine flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking soda and walnuts.
2. Add melted butter to dry ingredients and mix until ingredients are thoroughly combined.
3. Set aside one cup of the mixture to use as topping for the bars and press the rest into a 9” X 9” X 2” baking pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until crust is lightly golden.
4. Spread blueberry filling onto baked crust and sprinkle with topping, pressing the topping into the filling slightly.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes, until topping is golden brown. Cool in pan.
