Strawberry Shortbread Bars

Simple and seasonal, strawberry shortbread bars pair the bright sweetness of strawberries and the buttery indulgence of brown sugar shortbread.

I love berry season. Forget winter, spring, summer, fall, if there’s a berry on plants and bushes, it’s my favorite season. And every since childhood, strawberries have been my flagship berry.

And while I usually prefer eating them as fresh as possible, I’m always happy to find a way to put them in a dessert. Fabulous things never suffer with the old butter-sugar-flour treatment, you know?

And that’s exactly what these Strawberry Shortbread Bars are. The juiciest, sweetest strawberries baked into buttery, brown sugar shortbread–it’s a good life.

And they come together so easily and quickly! You mix a 4 ingredient dough, let strawberries get juicy for a half an hour, then bake them together into buttery squares of indulgence.

These bars are similar to my Lemon Blueberry Shortbread Bars, but because strawberries are softer the filling doesn’t have to be precooked. The lemon juice here is also not a major star, it’s just present to brighten up the strawberries a bit. You could add zest to the dough if you want a stronger lemon flavor.

Ingredients:

• Butter
• Flour
• Brown Sugar
• Salt
• Vanilla
• Strawberries
• Lemon
• White Sugar

Equipment Needed:

• two mixing bowls
• a knife for cutting the strawberries
• a mixing spoon or spurtle
• a 9″x9″ baking dish
• baking scale or measuring cups & spoons

How to Make Strawberry Shortbread Bars

Making the Brown Sugar Shortbread Crust

In a mixing bowl, beat together the butter, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and salt until the mixture is fluffy. This will take 2-3 minutes with an electric mixer or about 5 minutes if you’re mixing by hand.

Add the flour all at once and stir it in carefully. You should have a soft, pliable dough.

Press about 2/3 of the dough into an even layer in the bottom of a 9″x9″ baking dish. Reserve the rest for topping the bars.

Preparing the Strawberry Filling

Wash the strawberries thoroughly, then cut off the green tops. Slice the strawberries, or chop them into small pieces. Cut the lemon in half.

Place the berries in a bowl and gently stir in the sugar, a splash of vanilla extract, and juice half of the lemon into the bowl. Set the berries aside for about 30-60 minutes. This is called macerating and will create a sweet juice for the berries to cook in.

Once the strawberries are juicy, spread them over the shortbread crust. Pour any juice left in the bowl over the top of them.

Use the remaining shortbread cookie dough to create a crumbly topping. With your fingers, break off little bits of the dough and spread them over the berries, making sure that there are still places where the strawberries shows through.

Baking the Strawberry Shortbread Bars

Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Place a rack in the center of the oven.

Once it has preheated, place the pan in the oven and bake it for 45-50 minutes, or until the topping is beginning to turn golden brown and no longer looks doughy. The berries should be darker and have a jammy, thickened look.

Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to cool completely before cutting it up–this allows the filling to set. Cut in four strips in one direction, then turn the pan and cut it the other direction to create squares. With a spatula, carefully remove them from the pan.

Store the bars in an airtight container at room temperature. They will keep to 3-4 days.

Recipe Notes & Tips

• Unfortunately, you can’t use frozen strawberries for these bars. When fruit is frozen, the ice crystals change the structures of the fruit, which makes it release a lot more juice. This translates to soggy, sorry bars.
• Be sure not to underbake the bars. You don’t want the center of the pan to be doughy.

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