My friend Cherise gave me a quart of blackberries on Saturday. Sunday was father's day and I decided to whip up a batch of the cocoa halvah, and make something with the blackberries to give to my boyfriend's parents.

This recipe is truly an experiment, it's a shortbread base, with a custard layer with remaining shortbread crumbs on top. The shortbread is almond, the custard layer is packed with almond, lemon, and blackberry flavors. It's sweet and buttery. Flavors aren't unusual, you can find lemon and blackberry recipes, almond and blackberry recipes online. You can find tarts, bars, and recipes for pie-bars but this may be a little unique. The middle layer is not quite a custard layer, it's not a sponge- it's somewhere in between.  I may tweak this recipe in the future- perhaps by making the shortbread layer thinner so it's more like a Kuchen. In any case, the recipe is here for you to play with and for those of you that tried it, here it is. My family liked it very much and seemed surprised I experimented as much as I did for as well as it came out. My boyfriend took the remaining third to work to share with his co-workers, but hinted that it was too good to share. If you try it, let me know how it works out, and if you have suggestions for other names or ingredients, that's what the spaces for comments are for! Enjoy!

 
Blackberry Almond Shortbread Bars
12x19 pan

Shortbread Base

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup ground roasted almonds (toast whole raw almonds in oven, process in food processor)
1 lb unsalted butter, chilled, cubed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup turbinado raw sugar
zest of 1 lemon
 
Filling

1 cup organic light sour cream
4 organic eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup all purpose flour
juice of 1 lemon
8 drops of pure almond oil
2 pinches of sea salt
 
3 1/2 cups blackberries (rinsed and drained right before use)
1/3 of the shortbread base for topping
 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line a 12x19 pan with parchment paper.
 
Make shortbread base. Pulse dry ingredients in a food processor until crumbs form. If your food processor bowl is too small, as mine was, process shortbread dough in small batches and transfer the ingredients from a large mixing bowl back to the food processor and back. Alternatively in a very large mixing bowl use a pastry blender or your fingers until blended. (The quantity is large here, so it might be easier to use the food processor unless you half the recipe.) Set aside 1/3 of the crumbs in a small bowl to use later for the topping. Press shortbread crumbs firmly into the large baking pan and set in the refrigerator to cool.

Clean food processor bowl and make the filling. First mix sour cream and eggs together in the food processor. Add sugar, flour, lemon juice, almond oil and sea salt, pulse until combined well.

Remove the pan from the refrigerator and pour the filling on top. Drop in the blackberries. Top with remaining crumbs.
 
Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 mins. Cool and cut into pieces.