U-Pick Blueberries at Ever After Farms (And Amazing Blueberry Oat Crumble Bars Recipe!)
In nature, blue is a color that’s reserved for the best of the best.
Less than 1 in 10 plants have blue flowers, and only a tiny fraction of animals can boast a beautiful shade of cerulean or azure.1 However, one bush has gone above and beyond these odds to produce a delicious and delightfully blue delicacy: the blueberry.
Perfect for popping right in your mouth or baking into a cobbler, the U-Pick Blueberries at Ever After Farms can also provide you with an afternoon of fun! Spend a sunny afternoon with friends, picking fruit, and petting farm animals, all with the promise of chowing down on some blueberry oat crumble bars when you get home.
Sound like an ideal day? Then read on for bountiful berry picking tips and our mouthwatering recipe! (Unless you said “no.” In that case, here’s an article about orange things instead.)
U Pick Blueberries, I Pick Blueberries,
We all pick blueberries!
Not as catchy as the ice cream version of the chant, is it? Oh, well, it’s still just as tasty! Especially thanks to U-Pick Blueberry Farm offering up a harvest of bright, fresh blueberries right at our fingertips. And by harvest, we mean 100,000 pounds of blueberries every year. Now that’s a lot of cobblers!
The best time to go scouting for berries is during the blueberry season (but you probably guessed that). In Florida, the blueberry season runs from mid-March through the end of May — in other words, it’s happening right now! Booyah! Or should I say blueyah?
If you’re ready to get pickin’, then head to the town of Mims, in Central Florida, where you’ll find the legendary U-Pick Blueberry Farm. Part of the exquisite Ever After Farms (famous for their stunning wedding venues), the blueberry farm is just as thoughtfully maintained as the amazing wedding barns, both agriculturally speaking and in terms of welcoming guests.
The U-Pick Blueberries experience is tailored to be a fantastic outing for the entire family. The grounds are well-maintained and specially groomed so it’s easy to walk around and hunt for the best berries (although, since it is still a farm, you’ll probably want to opt for tennis shoes rather than sandals!). Additionally, the bushes themselves are methodically trimmed so small children and those in wheelchairs can easily pick berries, too! At the U-Pick Blueberry Farm, the “U” truly means everybody, and we love that!
Some quick #protips for your U-Pick adventure: remember to wear sunscreen and a hat! And don’t worry about bringing cash — this blueberry farm happily takes credit cards.
While it’s true you could get blueberries from your local grocery store…it’s so much more fun to go blueberry picking! Plus, the berries you pick yourself just taste better. They’re fresher, at the right level of ripeness, and imbued with the memories of a fun day.
And if you just go to the grocery store, you’ll miss out on all of the animals! That’s right — the Ever After Farms U-Pick Blueberry Farm has a petting zoo. With mini-ponies, Silkie chickens, and an adorable mini-donkey, you might accidentally forget about the berries altogether! However, if you can bear to tear yourself away from all of those cuties, do take a tractor-pulled hayride around the farm and enjoy watching the blueberries roll by!
Bringing Home the Berries
When you get home with your berries, you have some decision-making to do. Obviously, you’re going to eat those scrumptious blueberries, but the question is: how?
You could eat them raw or with some ice cream, make them into a delicious jam, or even freeze them for later. (You never know when you might have a blueberry emergency!) However, blueberry emergencies aside, I think the ideal way to use your u-pick blueberries is to bake them into a pan of mouthwatering, blueberry oat crumble bars! With classic ingredients like butter, oats, cinnamon, and blueberries, you know you can’t go wrong.
Delightfully delicious and wonderfully simple, this recipe is a go-to among my favorite desserts!
As you know, I love a recipe that doesn’t require dirtying a lot of dishes, and this one delivers. You’ll need a 9×13 pan, two bowls, an electric mixture, and measuring cups and spoons. It’s the kind of clean-up that’ll be done long before the crumble finishes baking!
Once all of your utensils are ready, you’ll want to raid your pantry for some whole wheat pastry flour, rolled oats, organic coconut sugar, salt, cinnamon, almonds, cornstarch, and lemon zest. You’ll also want to grab a stick of butter from the fridge, but don’t worry about letting it soften — you’ll actually want it cold for this recipe. Oh, and you’ll need those freshly picked berries, of course!
While your oven is preheating to 375°F, line your 9×13 pan with parchment paper and put it to the side.
Next, grab one of your bowls and mix together 2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour, 1 cup of rolled oats, 1 cup coconut sugar, 1/2 tsp of salt, and a 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. Next, you’ll cube your cold butter and mix in the butter-bits with an electric mixer. Small clumps of delectable dough will form.
Now, measure out 2 cups of your crumbly dough mixture and set it aside. You’ll then press the remaining mixture into the bottom of the parchment paper-lined pan.
In a second bowl, combine 4 cups of those wonderful blueberries, 2 Tbsp of coconut sugar, 1 Tbsp of cornstarch, and 1 tsp of lemon zest to give your crumble that extra zing! Pour this mixture into your cake pan, on top of the crust.
Were you worried I would forget about those two random cups of crumbly mixture? Don’t worry, we’re getting to them now! Take that reserved mixture, add in some yummy almonds, then sprinkle it evenly over the top of the blueberries.
Now only 40 minutes in the oven stand between you and this scrumptious dessert.
Once you see the crust turning a lovely, golden brown and the blueberries starting to bubble, you’ll know it’s done. Just let it cool before cutting it into generously-sized bars!
You can eat these blueberry oat crumble bars with a dollop of ice cream or exactly as they are. And — here’s a highly classified secret — you can even eat this crumble with blackberry filling instead of blueberry. (I know, treasonous!)
I hope you love this recipe as much as I do. Enjoy!
Blueberry Oat Crumble Bars
Equipment
- 9×13 cake pan
- electric mixer
- 2 mixing bowls
Ingredients
Crust & Topping
- 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1 cup organic coconut sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 cup butter cold, cubed
- 1/2 cup sliced almonds
Filling
- 4 cups blueberries fresh or frozen (~28 ounces)
- 2 Tbsp organic coconut sugar
- 1 Tbsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp lemon zest
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Line 9×13 cake pan with parchment paper.
- For crust and topping: in a bowl, mix together whole wheat pastry flour, rolled oats, coconut sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Add butter and use electric mixer to combine until dough forms into small clumps.
- Remove 2 cups of this mixture and set aside.
- Put remaining mixture in 9×13 pan and press into place.
- For filling: in a bowl, mix together blueberries, coconut sugar, cornstarch, and lemon zest.
- Pour filling over the crust.
- For topping: add sliced almond to remaining oat-mixture, then sprinkle evenly over the blueberry filling.
- Bake for 40 minutes or until topping is golden brown and blueberries are bubbling.
- Cool completely then cut into bars.
- Enjoy!!
With Spring finally shoving Winter out of the way, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than with blueberries! Happy picking, and happy baking, everybody! Oh, and Happy Spring, too!
Cover Image
Photo: MouseEars TV Creative Team
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