Raspberry Bars for the Road

My partner transplanted a small raspberry bush from the side of the McCarthy Road to the river bluff in front of our cabin building site. Twelve years later, we have a cabin and a thriving raspberry patch, though I am not sure if the wild raspberries came from that one transplant. Wild raspberries, Rubus idaeus, are fairly common in the Interior and Southcentral Alaska, and they love to grow in sunny disturbed soils along riverbanks, roadbeds, and other edge habitats.

Tending this wild patch of plants is my favorite type of gardening. We care for them by watering them with our gravity fed hose and pruning back old canes, but they would grow here anyway. I look forward to July and August days where I can go out in the morning and pick a handful of berries for my morning yogurt. I like to pick their leaves, too, and brew them into a nutrient rich tea.

Wild raspberries are a bit smaller, seedier, and less sweet than the cultivated kind, but they are packed with flavor and taste like pure summer. Raspberries are great on their own fresh off the bush, but they are delicate and don’t travel very well. If you do want to take some of that flavor with you, or save it for later, I recommend capturing it in home-baked raspberry bars. This recipe, inspired by a Linzer torte, calls for walnut and cinnamon in the crust. The nuts add a warm, earthy flavor.

By Kristin Link / Photography By Kristin Link | May 08, 2023

Ingredients

SERVINGS: Makes 1 dozen bars Dozen

¾ cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
1½ cups all purpose flour
1½ cups walnuts
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
1½ sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cold
1 egg
2½ cups fresh or frozen raspberries
½ cup slivered almonds (optional)

Preparation

Make the crust: Finely chop walnuts in a food processor. Mix chopped walnuts with flour, ¾ cup sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Cut butter into cubes and work it into the flour/nut mixture as you would with pie dough until the mixture starts to hold together in pea-shaped balls. Add egg and stir until dough holds together. Put dough in the refrigerator (you don’t need to do this, but if you haven’t harvested your raspberries yet, then it is a good idea to keep it cold).

Go outside and harvest 3 cups of raspberries. Pick some leaves to make tea (steep them in boiling water for 2 minutes). Drink tea and eat a handful of raspberries.

Prepare a 9-by-9-inch baking pan by greasing it and lining it with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 375° F.

Remove dough from the refrigerator and divide it in half. Press half of dough into the bottom of the pan so that it forms a bottom crust about ½-inch thick.

Cover with raspberries and, if using wild ones, sprinkle with remaining sugar. Crumble remaining dough, over the raspberries, covering most of them. Top with slivered almonds. if you want. Bake for 45 to 60 minutes until top is light brown and crisp. Let cool then slice into 12 bars.