Strawberry Bars for National Strawberry Month

May is National Strawberry Month, and I have been wanting to try this idea for a while, so it seemed like the perfect time.  They are similar to the ever popular lemon bar, but with strawberries. And, I don't mean strawberries and lemons, I mean just strawberries.  Every recipe I have seen was a strawberry-lemon combination, which I am sure is delicious too, but I wanted just strawberries this time, so I came up with my own recipe from a combination of several others.  They are actually the color of the ones in the picture - kind of lavender-pink, so if you want really pink ones, you might want to add a little food coloring.




Strawberry Bars
yield: 24 bars


Crust

1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 sticks butter, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups flour

Filling

4 cups strawberry puree (about 2 lbs of berries pureed in a food processor
2 cups sugar
5 eggs
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup flour


Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a parchment lined 9" by 13" baking pan.  Mix all ingredients of the crust together with an electric mixer.  Press mixture evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake for approximately 18 minutes or until just slightly golden.

After pureeing the strawberries, press the through a fine mesh sieve.  This will remove a lot of seeds, but it will not remove all of them, and that is fine.  The final product will not seem seedy.  In an electric mixer on low, using the whisk attachment, mix together strawberries and sugar.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.  Add the salt and baking powder an mix for just a few seconds to evenly distribute and then add the flour.  Mix thoroughly on medium until smooth. Pour over the crust.  Bake for approximately 40 minutes or until the strawberry mixture is just set. Allow to cool completely before cutting.