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Stack of strawberry crumble bars on a plate.

Brown Butter Strawberry Crumb Bars

Heather Smoke
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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5 from 1 vote
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 15 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 45 minutes
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings9

Equipment

  • 8 inch baking pan

Ingredients
 

Strawberry Filling

  • ¾ lb strawberries, washed, hulled and chopped
  • ¾ cup good-quality strawberry jam or preserves
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 5 extra strawberries, to place on top of the crumble

Crust and Topping

  • ¾ cup unsalted butter
  • 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled, divided
  • cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
  • ¾ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
  • ¾ tsp baking powder
  • ¼ tsp ground cardamom

Icing

  • ¾ cup powdered sugar
  • 1 ½ tbsp orange juice
  • ¼ tsp vanilla 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.
Keyword Brown Butter, Crumb Bars, Strawberry
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