crumble be mine?

'Tis no secret that I have a thing for crumble. And there was a lonely jar of raspberry preserves in my fridge that needed a purpose. So I decided to sandwich the preserves with shortbread and crumble. The outcome? Berry Good Crumblebread Bars.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Butter, butter, and more butter. What would your inner dietitian say?! To eat it all in moderation, of course. Or if you want a large quantity of it.....substitute it for...errr, dinner. Not that I've ever done that before... ;)

Anyway, kudos for the crumble go out to the Leah and Anita, keepers of the ever-so delicious crumble recipe. Somehow, though, my crumble never turns out like theirs. :( Maybe it's like that theory...that food always tastes better when someone else cooks it for you. Hmm. But whatever the reason, crumble is delicious. 'Nuff said.

And when life gives you extra crumble....what do you do with it? Make a crisp, of course! However, my fridge was bare of apples, and bananas looked really tasty sittin' pretty atop the toaster oven. Soooo, voila! Banana crisp! Now, I've always wondered why there are berry crisps, apple crisps, rhurbarb crisps, but no banana crisps. Why is this, and isn't this a sad fact of life? Bananas are so delicious...they definately deserved to be crispified.

So crispify, I did...and how delicious it was. However, I do believe that I see the problem with banana crisp. Brown bananas. Expose those puppies to the air, and WHHAAMMMO. You've got yourself ugly, brown, mushy bananas. So despite this dessert's delicious flavor, we'll see what the leftovers look like tomorrow morning. And if you'd like to try this dessert out for yourself, just chop up some bananas, place them in your oven-safe bowl, and sprinkle with some crumble.

Berry Good Crumblebread Bars
Shortbread recipe taken (and slightly altered) from Closet Cooking

For crumble:
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups oatmeal

For shortbread:
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 sticks butter
1/2 cup sugar

Raspberry preserves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare crumble: mix butter, flour, brown sugar, and oatmeal in medium-sized bowl. Set aside.

Prepare shortbread: mix flour and salt in a bowl. Cream the butter and sugar in another bowl. Mix the flour into the butter, and press into bottom of 8x8-inch baking pan sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.

Over the shortbread, spoon on some preserves until covered. Take your crumble, and crumble it over the preserves, until mostly covered.

Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until crumble is browned and cookie is set.