Lemon Strawberry Crumb Bars Recipe

These lemon strawberry crumb bars are like strawberry lemonade in handheld form. Simply combine a buttery brown sugar crust, sweet strawberry filling, and crumbly topping. The crust and crumble topping are made from the same mixture, so there’s no need to dirty an additional bowl. Lemon glaze is the perfect finishing touch!

Here’s a sweet and juicy square to brighten up your day. These lemon strawberry crumb bars are like my raspberry streusel bars in that there’s a crust layer, fruit layer, topping, and glaze. They’re similar to my cranberry crumble pie bars, cherry pie bars, and strawberry rhubarb crumb bars, too. Totally irresistible and seasonally fresh, the bars are relatively easy and pack big flavor.

What I love most in this recipe—and what you’ll find mega convenient—is that they feature a crust and crumb topping that are made from the same dough, just like oatmeal lemon crumble bars.

These Lemon Strawberry Crumb Bars:

• Have a crumbly yet moist brown sugar crust
• Are filled with jammy strawberries
• Go from mixing bowl to oven fairly quickly
• Taste divine with or without lemon glaze
• Are very easy to slice, serve, eat, and freeze
• Fantastic with a glass of honey sweetened strawberry lemonade on the side

Ingredients in Lemon Strawberry Crumb Bars:

We’re using a similar recipe to both my strawberry rhubarb crumb bars and cranberry bars. You don’t need a fully stocked pantry to make these. In fact, I guarantee you have most of the ingredients on hand!

• All-Purpose Flour: Flour is the base of this recipe.
• Brown Sugar & Granulated Sugar: Sugar sweetens the crust/crumble and the strawberry rhubarb filling. I use brown sugar in the crust/crumble and white granulated sugar in the filling. Feel free to swap these around using all brown sugar for both or all granulated sugar for both. I’ve tested it all and there’s no huge difference except that the crust/crumb topping is a little crumblier when using granulated sugar instead of brown.
• Baking Powder: Baking powder keeps the crust/crumble on the lighter side. Without it, the texture would be a little too hard and dense.
• Salt & Vanilla: Both add flavor.
• Cold Butter: Just like pie crust, biscuits, scones, and even cinnamon coffee cake, cold butter is necessary. We’re cutting the butter into the dry ingredients to create the buttery, flaky, and crumbly texture. The texture would completely change if we used softened or melted butter.
• Eggs: 1 whole egg and 1 egg yolk bind the crust/crumble ingredients together. My cranberry crumble bars use 1 egg and some milk, but I find no big difference swapping in eggs. You can also use 2 full eggs if that’s more convenient. (I do this with my strawberry rhubarb bars.) This base recipe is pretty forgiving.
• Strawberries: You can use fresh or frozen strawberries.
• Cornstarch: We’re essentially making a jam as the filling, so cornstarch is necessary to keep the strawberries thick and combined.
• Lemon Zest: Strawberries are pretty soft, so I don’t add additional liquid (like orange or lemon juice) as I do with the cranberry version. However, flavor from a little lemon zest is definitely welcome!

Cold Cold Cold

Make sure the butter is extra cold. If you use warmer butter, the butter will melt before the bars hit the oven. You’ll have a pan of greasy strawberry blobs, not bars. After that, mix in the rest of the crust/crumble mixture. Honestly, the best tool for mixing these wet ingredients into the butter/flour crumbs is your HANDS! It takes me forever to mix with a spoon or spatula.

And here’s a tip: don’t overwork the mixture because your hands may heat up the dough. Remember, we want cold!

Then press about 2/3 of the mixture into a pan. The rest will be used for the crumb topping over the fresh strawberries.

The bars are on the thick side, so they take a good 45-50 minutes in the oven. Then, and here’s where your patience really has to kick in, wait until the bars completely cool before digging in. While SO GOOD when they’re warm, they completely fall apart. Definitely test your patience and wait for them to cool.

Lemon Glaze

If you really want to kick things into high gear, add some lemon glaze. Made from lemon juice and confectioners’ sugar, this 2 ingredient icing couldn’t be easier. Whisk together, then drizzle over the cooled bars.

We use the same glaze to top strawberry sweet rolls, too!