These Blackberry Lemon Bars have just the right balance of sweet, fresh blackberries and tart lemon goodness with an extra-thick shortbread crust!
This past week has been quite the whirlwind in the Powers house! I finally got a referral to see a reproductive endocrinologist to get her thoughts on our 4+ years of infertility struggles and she had a whole lot of answers for me!! Which is excellent news because we’ve had a bazillion tests done over the past couple years, tried several different treatments, etc. and the whole time my doctors kept saying “everything looks normal on your test results” when I knew things weren’t normal and I wasn’t ovulating on my own. It turns out I have a combination of PCOS and insulin resistance. So, she put me on a super strict ketogenic (keto) diet (high in good fats, adequate protein, very low carb) and I talked Hubby into starting it with me too.
Because I’m pretty much only going to be cooking for this new diet, the recipes are going to start changing a lot around here to match our day to day meals. If you’re a fan of low-carb (and gluten-free), this likely means a ton of new options for you to try out! Since going keto means a lot of big lifestyle/meal plan changes, I’m thinking I’m going to blog a bit about my experiences and weight-loss updates so other people can benefit from what I’m learning as I teach myself to cook all over again with this new set of rules. I’m not sure we will stay keto long-term, but the hope is I will be able to lose about 50-60 lbs and get my insulin levels and fertility back to normal. Worst case, I just end up skinny again. 😉 So I really hope you’ll stick around and cheer me on as I go on this journey to better health!
In the meantime, I still have a few “regular” carb recipes ready to share with you over the next few weeks before I start trying to invent more keto recipes. So today I wanted to share with you these blackberry lemon bars. They are pretty much the most delicious lemon bars you will ever have the chance to eat. I made the crust nice and thick and swirled the blackberry sauce around to give them a marbled look. The sweetness of the blackberries offsets some of the tart of the lemon custard and really makes for a more balanced dessert than plain old lemon bars in my opinion. If you need a great recipe to take to a get together, these are sure to be a big hit! I hope you enjoy them as much as we did! (And eat an extra one for me since they’re off-limits on my current diet plan.)
Blackberry Lemon Bars
- Prep Time: 20
- Cook Time: 40
- Total Time: 60
- Yield: 20 1x
Ingredients
For the Crust
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 sticks (1 cup) butter, cubed
For the Filling
- 1–1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup flour
- 4 large eggs
- lemon zest from 3 medium lemons
- juice from 3 medium lemons
For the Blackberry Syrup
- 1 pint blackberries
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup sugar
Instructions
Make the Syrup
- In a medium sauce pan, add the water, sugar and half the blackberries. Muddle the blackberries with a muddler or the back of a wooden spoon to release the juice. Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and allow the mixture to thicken, about 5-10 minutes. Pour through a strainer into a cup with a pour spout and set aside.
Make the crust
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Combine flour, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl.
- Use a pastry cutter to cut the cubed butter into the flour mixture until it’s fully blended and a crumbly dough has formed.
- Press into the bottom of a greased 9×13 pan and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until golden.
Make the filling
- Combine the sugar and the flour.
- Whisk in the eggs, lemon juice, and lemon zest until mixture is well combined.
- Pour over the crust in the pan.
- Gently swirl in the blackberry syrup and top with fresh blackberries. (I spaced mine out to be about 1 per bar.)
- Bake for about 20 minutes, or until mixture has set.
- Cool in the fridge for about 2 hours then slice and enjoy!
- (Dust with powdered sugar, if you like, for that “lemon bar look.”)
Notes
- Gluten-free: these are not gluten-free, but should bake up pretty well with GF flour.
- Vegetarian: These are vegetarian.
- Vegan: These are not vegan.
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