Late summer desserts should by all means be messy & delicious

Hello friends!

It feels like it’s been ages – such a busy summer. Tomorrow is September already!! I can hardly believe it.

I took advantage of a crop of slightly below-par blueberries (as in, I was finding they were a bit too squishy to want to eat out of hand but were perfect for jammy goodness) to make these super simple blueberry crumb bars. Essentially they’re made of two very basic essentials: blueberry chia jam and almond flour dough. They take only about 30 min to throw together and bake, and they are GREAT with ice cream, just saying. The general consensus was that they were like pie, only not pie, and very easy pie at that.

Also, they can feed all your friends! Free of the glutens, the grains, the lactoses, and the refined sugars – everyone will love you. Just don’t feed them to your friends who are allergic to nuts, that would be no bueno.

Perfect late summer eats, when it’s hot and you want something to use up the absurd amount of fruit you’ve just bought at the market. No? Just me? I know you do it too…. summer fruit is too good to resist.

(those are spoon marks, btw, not bite marks.. just in case you were wondering, we ate it straight out of the pan with spoons because, why not?)

I’ve been enjoying a ton of nice walks – mostly home from work – but I still get some great views and it’s great to move around after sitting all day. There have been some beautiful sunsets visible from my apartment too!

A few photos of life lately…

I hope you’re kicking back and relaxing this holiday weekend! I may have more baking on tap, we’ll see we’ll see ;)

Happy Saturday!

Blueberry Hazelnut Crumb Bars

Gluten & grain free, refined sugar free, and lactose free! Paleo, basically. Perfect use of a crop of late summer bloobs… yield: 1 8″ pan, serves several. A Wait are Those Cookies original.

For the blueberry filling

2 c blueberries (I used a combo of fresh & frozen)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 tsp tapioca flour
1/4 c chia seeds

In a small saucepan, heat blueberries, cinnamon, sea salt, and tapioca until just barely boiling, 5-8 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the chia seeds; let cool.

For the crust & crumble

2 c almond flour
1 tbsp vanilla
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp maple
3 tbsp melted ghee
1/3 c chopped hazelnuts

Preheat the oven to 350 and line some kind of 8” pan with parchment – this is the least fussy recipe ever, so square, round, tart pan, etc – whatever you have is fine! I used an 8” round cake pan. In a large bowl, stir almond flour, vanilla, salt, maple and ghee together. Reserve half a cup and stir in the hazelnuts (this will be the top bit) – set aside. Press the rest of the dough into the base of the pan, and bake for 12-15 minutes until set. Remove from the oven and top evenly with blueberry mixture. Crumble the rest of the reserved hazelnut crumble on the top of the blueberries, and bake for another 23-25 minutes, until the top is lightly golden brown and the blueberries are bubbly. Remove and let cool completely before serving. It’s also fabulous cold – I made mine the night before serving, refrigerated overnight and served straight out of the fridge – highly recommended. Leftovers keep well covered in the fridge for a day or two but I dare you to have any ;)