PEACH + BLACKBERRY PIE BARS

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Hi. It’s me. The food blogger who has been posting recipes for about a year and a half now and who still hasn’t shared ONE traditional pie recipe yet! I believe I’ve mentioned it before in a previous post, but pies aren’t my strong suit and if someone asked me to make them a pie, I would most likely have a panic attack and then pick one up from Marie Callendars and said I baked it.

When I tell other bakers that I’m nervous of making pies, they’re usually understanding… if you didn’t grow up baking them or at least practice the process over the years, pies can definitely be daunting. There’s the stress of making the dough, from having to worry about your warm hands melting the butter to allowing the dough to chill in the fridge. You have to be proactive when it comes to avoiding a “soggy bottom”, which means figuring out if you need to parbake the crust or not. And then (what I fear the most) is making your pie look beautiful whether it’s with a perfect lattice crust or the cutesy little dough flower or leaf cut-outs that you see bakers doing on Pinterest and Instagram. I am not an arts and crafts kind of person (I can barely cut in a straight line) and therefore the thought of decorating a pie is just not fun to think about. I’m not saying pie is the hardest thing to make! I’m just saying that there is a lot to consider when attempting to bake one.

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So, this is why I LOVE making galettes, tarts, and today’s recipe: pie bars. These three categories of desserts are all super forgiving in almost every step along the way and just seem to be much less fussy than when tackling a pie. Since I’ve given you a recipe for a galette and a tart, it’s time to work with the very straightforward and simple recipe of pie bars. Pie bars take everything you would normally find in a pie - a crust, a filling of your choice, and a topping in the form of a crisp or streusel. No difficult lattice work to be found here!

And mark my words, I promise that I will do an apple pie recipe around Thanksgiving time. Apple pie à la mode is up there when it comes to my favorite desserts, so I will definitely work on perfecting a recipe to share with you all.

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Since we’re in the midst of stone fruit and berry season, I thought we’d take a fruit from each category and marry them together for these pie bars. I choice to work with yellow peaches and blackberries, but feel free to switch it up to your liking and substitute the stone fruit with apricots, nectarines, plums or pluots, and the berry component with raspberries or blueberries.

Sidenote: I visited the Laguna Beach Farmers Market this past weekend and tried the most amazing stone fruit I’ve come across yet: cherums! It’s a hybrid of cherries and plums and they’re so crunchy and flavorful, and they were the perfect dessert for our beach picnic later that day. Try to get a hold of them at your local farmers market! Picture of them above (along with the pluots that I also bought).

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The crust for these pie bars isn’t exactly a typical pie crust recipe, but actually the shortbread crust that I used for my lemon bars. This crust is made with three ingredients (flour, powdered sugar, and melted butter) and comes together in less than 5 minutes. There’s no chilling, no rolling out; all you need is to mix the ingredients together and then press it into the bottom of the baking dish with your hands or a spatula.

As for the filling, you can play around a bit with a couple of things: 1) how much sugar you’ll be adding and 2) what kind of spices you wish to use. If your fruit isn’t exactly at the peak of ripeness, I would suggest adding an additional tablespoon or so of sugar to what I have suggested below in the directions, and if your fruit is perfectly sweet, follow the recipe as written. For the added spices, I stuck to those that are most commonly found in pies, but you can use your favorites whether than means adding only cinnamon, a combo of nutmeg and ginger, or a little bit of each.

Lastly, for the topping, we’ll be using a crisp mixture, which basically means a streusel topping but with old fashioned/rolled oats added. I kept it simple and added only a bit of cinnamon to my mixture but once again, you can add more spices to your liking, but I’d recommend sticking to adding no more than 1 teaspoon of spices combined. I also added chopped pecans for extra crunch and flavor, but adding nuts is totally optional.

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Peach and Blackberry Pie Bars

Makes about 9-12 bars, depending on size

Ingredients

For the crust:

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  • 1 cup all-purpose flour

  • 1/4 cup confectioners’ (powdered) sugar

  • 6 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

For the filling:

  • 2 medium unpeeled peaches (about 1.5-2 cups), chopped

  • 1 (6 oz.) package of blackberries

  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar

  • 1 tbsp. all-purpose flour

  • 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

  • 1/4 tsp. ground ginger

  • 1/4 tsp. of ground nutmeg

  • Pinch of salt

  • 1/2 tsp. lemon zest

  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

For the crisp topping:

  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

  • 1/4 cup old-fashioned/rolled oats

  • 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed

  • 1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

  • 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

  • 1/4 tsp. salt

  • 1/4 cup (half a stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a bowl, mix together the melted butter, flour and sugar until well incorporated. The dough will be a bit crumbly. Transfer the dough to an ungreased 8x8 baking dish (alternatively, you can line the dish with a piece of parchment paper if you wish to pull the entire baked good out). Using your hands or the back of a spatula, press the dough evenly into the dish.

  2. Bake the shortbread crust for about 15-17 minutes, or until the dough has firmed up and is golden. Set aside to cool, but keep the oven on at 350°F.

  3. In a large bowl, toss all “filling” ingredients (everything from peaches to vanilla extract) together gently using a spatula. Set aside to allow the fruit to macerate a little.

  4. For the crisp topping, add all ingredients except for the chilled butter to a medium bowl. Mix together using a whisk. Add the butter and use your fingertips to work it into the mixture until crumbs form.

  5. Pour the fruit filling over the slightly chilled shortbread crust and then evenly sprinkle the crisp topping over the fruit (using a spoon or your hand). Bake in the oven for 35-45 minutes, or until the crisp topping is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling. Allow the pie bars to cool completely before cutting into them. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

BLACKBERRY + HAZELNUT YOGURT POUND CAKE

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I have some pretty exciting (exciting for me, boring for you) news: Alex and I just booked another trip back to Portland, Maine! If you’ve been following along with The Vivid Kitchen, I think it’s pretty obvious by now how much we love Portland and would do anything to live there, so the fact that we managed to book our third trip there in less than two years is amazing.

This will be the first time that we’ll be visiting in the springtime, so we can’t wait to see how different the city will be... there may be snow on the ground or it could be raining every other day, but we won’t mind that at all! Something else different about this trip is that this is the first time we’ll have a rental car. This means we’ll be able to check out places we’ve been dying to see outside of Portland, like Palace Diner in Biddeford, The Purple House in North Yarmouth, and most importantly, ACADIA (!!!). If you have any recommendations for must-see spots outside of Portland, I’m all ears.

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Now that I have Portland on the brain and I find myself once again googling more restaurants and bars to hit for our upcoming trip, I’m reminiscing about all of our favorite spots that we fell in love with over the past two trips: Bonobo for the most incredible wood-fired pizzas, Belleville for insanely flaky and buttery croissants and swirl buns, and LFK for creative cocktails. But one of our favorite breakfast haunts for some of the best pastries in the city is Tandem Coffee + Bakery, and it is where I drew inspiration from for today’s recipe.

On our last trip to Portland, Alex and I went to Tandem for an early morning breakfast, since their breakfast sandwiches, served on the best biscuits ever, are incredible. But if you’ve ever visited Tandem before, it goes without saying that you can’t leave without ordering from the bakery’s daily selection of baked goods ranging from cakes to cookies to pies. On this particular day, it was their scone selection that caught my attention: a blackberry and hazelnut flavored scone. The golden brown pastry looked like a textbook perfect scone, and the moment I had my first bite I fell deep in love with the flavor combination. Yes, a nut and berry combo isn’t that crazy of an idea for scones, but blackberries and hazelnuts together was new to me and I knew that I had to test it out in other kinds of baked goods when I got home.

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Which brings me to this amazingly simple and not too sweet, blackberry and hazelnut yogurt pound cake. This recipe is slightly adapted from the ingenious Alison Roman, author of the cookbook Dining In and regular contributor to The New York Times food section and Bon Appétit. Alison got a lot of recognition for Dining In, at first due to a cookie recipe that went viral (which I tried and loved), but she has gone on to show that just about any recipe that she shares with the world, is not only approachable but exceptionally delectable. I’ve cooked a handful of her recipes (sweet and savory) which are all great, but I’ll always have a soft spot for her yogurt and honey pound cake with raspberries (from her cookbook). I love a solid loaf cake recipe and how it only gets better the longer it sits in your fridge - loaf cakes like this one and banana breads are always better the next day, in my opinion.

So, I took Alison’s recipe, tweaked it a bit and tried the recipe with the blackberry and hazelnut flavor combination. The end result is seriously delicious and addicting, and something that I will make over and over again. Paired with the incredible and moist crumb due to the added Greek yogurt (or sour cream if you prefer) and the lightly sweetened taste due in part to a combination of honey and granulated sugar, this pound cake is a winner. In similar fashion with my citrus ricotta bundt cake with pistachios, I finished this cake with a good amount (re: a lot) of hazelnuts doused in honey, so if you’re bringing this to a friend’s house or a party, people will know what they’re getting themselves into… and the added crunch of even more hazelnuts makes the cake better, of course. Finish with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar and you’ll have a beautiful cake ready to go.

I can’t wait to visit Portland again for more inspiration for my blog and I so look forward to eating some of the best food and drinks that the city has to offer.

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P.S. This is my 50th blog post! Woo!

Blackberry and Hazelnut Yogurt Pound Cake

Makes 1 standard loaf cake (9x5 inch pan)

Recipe adapted from Alison Roman via Dining In

Ingredients

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  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus 1 tbsp. for berry and nut mixture

  • 2 tsp. baking powder

  • 1 tsp. kosher salt

  • 2 cups fresh blackberries

  • 1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar

  • 1/4 cup honey

  • 3/4 cup plain whole-milk Greek yogurt (or sour cream)

  • 1/3 cup neutral oil, like vegetable or grapeseed

  • 2 large eggs

  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

  • Roughly chopped hazelnuts, honey, confectioners’ sugar, etc. to finish

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan with butter or nonstick cooking spray.

  2. Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.

  3. In a small bowl, mix the berries and nuts together with 1 tbsp. all-purpose flour (to prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the cake while baking). Set this bowl aside as well.

  4. Combine the sugar, honey, Greek yogurt, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large bowl, and whisk until incorporated. Using a spatula, slowly fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Do not over mix. Carefully add the berry/nut/flour mixture to the bowl.

  5. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth over the top with a spatula. Bake in the oven for 60-70 minutes, rotating the pan once halfway through. The cake will be done when the cake is a deep golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with only a few crumbs.

  6. Allow the cake to fully cool in the pan on a cooling rack before removing and transferring to a plate. Top the cake with hazelnuts mixed with honey and/or confectioners’ sugar. Store the fridge wrapped in plastic wrap. In my opinion, loaf cakes are always best the next day!