Roasted Strawberry Cookie Bars
Slow roasted strawberries pack a flavorful punch when paired with an almond shortbread cookie bar.
Ingredients
Roasted Strawberries
- 2 lbs Fresh Strawberries
- ⅓ cup Granulated Sugar
- ½ Lemon Zested
- pinch Salt I used Himalayan pink salt
Almond Shortbread
- 2 sticks Butter Salted, room temperature.
- ¾ cup Granulated Sugar
- ¼ cup Brown Sugar
- ½ Lemon zested
- 1 Egg Yolk
- ½ tsp Almond Extract
- ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2½ cups Flour
- ¼ cup Slivered Almonds Toasted
- Powdered Sugar for dusting. Optional
Instructions
Roasted Strawberries
- Wash, hull, and slice in halves or quarters 2 pounds of strawberries.
- In a bowl combine sugar, strawberries, lemon zest, and sugar. Mix until combined. Allow the berries to macerate while the oven preheats to 275*F.
- Pour strawberries onto a sheet pan and spread evenly.
- Roast strawberries for an hour to an hour and a half. Making sure to stir every 30 minutes to prevent sticking and burning.
- Strawberries should be cooked and the syrup the berries released during roasting should be thick and syrupy.
- Using a spatula scrape the berries and as much syrup as you can into a heat safe bowl. Allow the berried to cool before using in the cookie bars. Can be stored in fridge for 3 days.
Almond Shortbread Cookie Bars
- Line a 8x8 baking pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 350*F.
- In a bowl combine salted room temperature butter and both types of sugars. Using a mixer beat the butter and sugar in high for one minute until creamy.
- Add the vanilla extract, almond extract, egg yolk, and lemon zest and continue mixing until incorporated.
- Add the flour and mix on low until it just comes together to form a soft dough. It will be crumbly.
- Press 2/3 of the dough into the bottom of the parchment lined pan.
- Bake for 25 minutes at 350*F.
- Add the sliced almonds to the remaining 1/3 dough in the bowl and combine. Set in the fridge while the crust bakes.
- Remove the crust from the oven when done baking. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
- Add the roasted strawberries to the top of the crust. Spreading carefully not to disturb the crust underneath.
- Crumble the almond topping on top of the roasted strawberries.
- Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and bubbly.
- Allow to cool at room temperature for 1-2 hours before slicing.
- For clean cuts of cookie bars, refrigerate at least 30 minutes prior to cutting.
- Before cutting the cookie bars you can also dust the top with powdered sugar. This will make the cookie bar more sweet and add an easy decoration.
- Slice bars into 9 squares with large kitchen knife. Bars will stay fresh refrigerated up to a week.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Don't want to roast fresh strawberries? No problem. Use 1 cup of your favorite strawberry jam.
You can also use raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry jam or preserves with amazing results!