Peach Crumble Bars

Peaches and I have a bit of a tumultuous relationship. I love them. But there is only a short window where they are actually edible. Sure, they're sold year-round. But if you buy a peach when they're not in season here, they're grainy, mushy (or hard as a rock) and flavourless. I actually feel quite angry when I see them in the grocery store in January. Why waste the gas to ship them north when they taste so gross? They look good, but don't be fooled. Peaches + out of season + Canada = BAD. Ok. End of rant.

With my feelings about out of season peaches in mind, I decided to stock up on ripe peaches. In searching the net looking for ways to freeze peaches, I mainly saw that the peaches should be frozen with a sweatener solution. I may regret the decision, but I decided to go with flash freezing of peeled and sliced peaches and call it a day.


I blanched the fruit and the skin easily peeled off.


I then cored the peach and sliced them in wedges.


I froze the peaches on parchment paper overnight and put them into a freezer bag the next day.


So far, so good.

But, my eyes were bigger than my fridge and I still had a lot peaches left over. So, I decided to go with a variation on a tried and true recipe. Remember the Blueberry Crumble Bars? They originated with Smitten Kitchen and have since become one of the most popular recipes on the food blogs. Well, I made them again. Except this time, I used a peach filling instead of blueberries.

I did everything the same as the previous time, except I used small chunks of peaches instead of blueberries. I also added extra corn starch, since peaches hold more liquid than blueberries. In the end, I still needed to use a slotted spoon to remove the peaches from the liquid that formed when I added the sugar mixture.

With those modifications, the consistency was just fine.


Much to my delight, the results were great. Quite a different flavour from blueberries, but very good.



This recipe came in handy this weekend. R and I met up with Giz for a foodie weekend. I brought a bunch of crumble bars for the road. Giz and I will tell you all about the weekend in some upcoming posts.