With layers of brown butter crumble crust and crumb topping, filled with jammy strawberries and finished with a drizzle of sweet icing, these bars are simply delicious.
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5extra strawberries,to place on top of the crumble
Crust and Topping
¾cupunsalted butter
2 ½cupsall-purpose flour, spooned and leveled,divided
⅓cuplight brown sugar,lightly packed
¾tspcoarse Kosher salt(if using table salt, use half the amount)
¾tspbaking powder
¼tspground cardamom
Icing
¾cuppowdered sugar
1 ½tbsporange juice
¼tspvanilla extract
Instructions
Filling
In a saucepan, combine the 3/4 pound strawberries, jam, lemon juice and vanilla. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat. Continue to simmer for 15-20 minutes, stirring frequently, until thick, syrupy, and reduced to about 1 3/4 cups.
Set the filling aside to cool while you make the crust. The filling can also be made a day or two in advance, and refrigerated.
Crust and Topping
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper, or just spray the pan with non stick baking spray.
In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Continue to cook the butter, swirling the pan occasionally until fragrant, and nutty brown solids form at the bottom of the pan.
While the butter is cooking, combine all but 3 tablespoons of flour with the brown sugar, salt, baking powder and cardamom in a bowl. Pour the browned butter over the flour mixture, scraping up all the brown solids from the pan, too. Use a spoon to stir it together into a soft dough.
Press 2/3 of the dough evenly in the bottom of the baking pan. Bake on the center oven rack for 20 minutes.
Add the remaining 3 tablespoons flour to the remaining 1/3 of the dough, and stir together until crumbly – this will be the topping. Set aside.
After baking the crust for 20 minutes, remove from the oven. Spread the strawberry filling over the hot crust, then sprinkle with the topping. Chop the remaining 5 strawberries, and nestle them on top of the crumble topping.
Bake the bars for about 35-40 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and the filling is bubbling. Set aside to cool completely, at least 4-6 hours. You can speed this up by cooling the bars at room temperature for 1 hour, then refrigerating for 1 1/2 hours.
Icing
Remove the bars from the pan by lifting the paper up and out of the pan. Set on a cutting board, cut into 9 squares, and arrange on a plate.
To make the icing, whisk together the powdered sugar, orange juice and vanilla extract. Drizzle over the bars. The icing will set quickly, in about 10 minutes.