Brown Sugar Shortbread Jam Bars
The smell of a pot of bubbling jam on the stove is possibly one of the best scent memories I can ever hope to create for my children. When I was cooking the preserves for this recipe, my 10 year old son popped his head over the balcony railing and said, “mmm, I hope that tastes as good as it smells, Mom.” It does son, it does. The brown sugar in the shortbread gives it a deeper flavor than just sweet and buttery, a hint of the earthiness to come in the autumnal months. For now, we’ll let our jam blip on the stove and take our iced tea to the porch to watch the breeze blow through the cottonwood trees on the edge of our yard. Heaven on earth, if you ask me.
Ingredients:
Makes about 16 large squares or 32 small ones
1 cup butter, cold and grated with a box grater
¾ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Berry Preserves:
16 ounces frozen berries
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
(or replace with 1 ½ cup of storebought preserves of your choice!)
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8x8 baking pan with parchment and nestle it into the corners to line the pan. In a wide saucepan, heat the frozen berries, sugar, vanilla, and water until it comes to a gently blipping simmer. Let it cook for about 20 minutes while you make the shortbread.
Grab a large bowl and toss the flour, brown sugar, and salt together. Grate the cold butter over the bowl and use your hands to toss and rub the flour and butter together. Add the vanilla and again, use your hands to run the dough together. I use the term “dough” very loosely here. If you’ve never made shortbread before you may be surprised by how dry the dough is. There’s no liquid added! If you squeeze the dough together in your fist you’ll see it holds together but crumbles very easily. This is perfect! The butter will melt while it cooks and fuse the flour and sugar together as it bakes. Take just over half of the shortbread mixture and press it into the pan in an even layer. Pour the berry preserves over top and spread evenly. Crumble the rest of the shortbread over top.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until the shortbread is getting a beautifully buttery, golden color.
Take out of the oven and don’t even THINK about taking it out of the pan for an hour or two. These need to cool quite a bit before slicing or they’ll just fall apart. That butter needs to firm back up again. They store at room temperature well for up to a week if they last that long :)
