Raspberry Crumb Bars

It's almost September and Halloween stores are opening and pumpkin recipes are up on the internet. Summer is still in full effect here in Florida. These past few days have been hot and humid and I cannot wait for cooler weather and Fall baking. Until then, I decided to go with a bright and summery dessert bar for you.

I am not the biggest raspberry fan. I love the flavor, but I just can't get past all the seeds. It tastes great, but if I had a choice between raspberries, blueberries or strawberries, I'd choose the last two.

I decided to use the raspberries I had to make some more room in freezer. This is the perfect way to use frozen raspberries, because they don't always hold their shape once thawed.

Raspberry Crumb Bars
adapted from allrecipes.com

Raspberry Crumb Bar Ingredients:
200 grams Granulated Sugar (1 cup)
3 grams Baking Powder (1 tsp)
375 grams All Purpose Flour (3 cups)
2 grams Salt (1/4 tsp)
Zest from one medium Lemon (1 tbsp)
226 grams cold unsalted Butter (2 sticks)
100 grams Eggs (2)

400 grams frozen Raspberries, thawed and strained of any extra juice (2 cups)
100 grams Granulated Sugar (1/2 cup)
18 grams Corn Starch (2 tbsp)

Raspberry Crumb Bar Directions:
 - Heat oven to 350F. Grease and flour, or use baking spray, on a 9 x 13 non-stick pan.
 - In a medium bowl, combine the first measure of Granulated Sugar, Baking Powder, All Purpose Flour, Salt and Lemon Zest. Using a pastry blender or fork and knives, cut the cold Butter into the dry ingredients, until pea-sized shapes are formed. Add in the 2 Eggs and continue to cut to combine.
 - Using 1/2 to 2/3 of the mixture, press it into the bottom of the pan.
 - In a separate bowl, combine the thawed Raspberries, second measure of Granulated Sugar and Corn Starch. Scoop the Raspberry mixture evenly over the bottom crust. Sprinkle the remaining dry mixture evenly over the top.
 - Bake for 45 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool completely before cutting.

Until next time,
LOVE & CONFECTIONS!

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Baby Love & Confections' Gender Reveal Party

 So this has been a long time coming... Mr. Love & Confections and I decided to host a Gender Reveal party for our Family and closest Friends. We scheduled an ultrasound and hoped that Baby L&C would cooperate so we could find out the gender.

I even baked cookies to help bribe the u/s techs into helping us find out - we had people driving in from out of town for the party. Luckily for us, Baby L&C cooperated for the gender part or the u/s, but I had to go back two weeks later to get some more pictures because of the way Baby was laying.

We were so excited to share the news with everyone and worried how to keep it a secret for 36 hours! My parents live out of state, so we had a surprise gender reveal cake for them that night (thanks Aunt B for helping) and they had to keep the secret for 24 hours before we told anyone else.

We decided to use a cake to reveal the gender - the filling would be either blue or pink. As soon as everyone arrived to the party, they asked us to cut the cake immediately. We waited a bit, had some snacks, then big reveal was upon us...

Until next time,
LOVE & CONFECTIONS!