Blueberry Lemon Cornmeal Shortbread Tart simply melts in your mouth with its tender and buttery crust and a sweet and juicy lemon blueberry filling. Sprinkle on the rest of the lemon shortbread for a perfect crumble. The most delightful way to use up summer’s blueberry bounty!
This is an end of summer recipe that is so easy to put together. The dough does not require any resting time and the filling takes a few minutes to put together. The addition of flour to the blueberries helps them to thicken up. The fruit to crust ratio is just perfect.
Blueberry Lemon Cornmeal Shortbread Tart
When we saw this Alison Roman recipe in the NY Times a few weeks ago we couldn’t wait to try it out! Another recipe we shared from Alison Roman is her Chickpea Stew with Kale and Sweet Potatoes (I adapted her recipe).
I happened to have 4 lbs of blueberries in the fridge that needed to be used up. With all of the hurricane preparations here, we didn’t get this recipe up last week and now everyone is already on pumpkin recipes. Hang on to those last lazy days of the season with a summer recipe that is worth baking! Totally obsessed with blueberry baking like us?
You have to try these really easy to make blueberry bars . Another popular summer recipe is this Blueberry Crostata (made with an Italian shortbread crust similar to this crust). In Italian this would be called a Torta Sbriciolata ai Mirtilli. Totally similar to our Italian Apple Crumble Cake - Torta Sbriciolata alle Mele .
First part of the recipe is gathering all the ingredients together.
Once you get them together, it's a matter of prepping a very simple cornmeal shortbread dough and an even easier blueberry filling.
You could make the dough and crumble topping in one bowl mixing the ingredients together with a wooden spoon. Another idea is to use your food processor or mixer attached with the dough hook. I love working with the dough by hand. Especially when it’s a crumble dough. It is really easy to come together and you could control the clumps as they’re forming with your fingers.
The next step is to add 2/3 of the dough to the bottom of your tart pan making sure to press up about 1/2 inch up the sides.
Spoon over the blueberry filling and cover the bottom remembering not to touch the sides of the pan (it will stick to the pan while baking and will be hard to remove). One last step is to sprinkle on the rest of the crumble mixture and bake at 350F. It bakes until the crust is golden and the blueberries thicken and bubble.
Save this recipe to your favorite dessert board with this pinable photo below!
very slightly adapted from NY Times
Blueberry Lemon Cornmeal Shortbread Tart
Ingredients
- CRUST AND CRUMBLE:
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup cornmeal
- zest of lemon grated
- ⅓ cup sugar
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup unsalted butter or vegan butter sticks,melted and slightly cooled
- FOR THE FILLING:
- 1 pound blueberries
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- zest of one lemon grated
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- Pinch of salt
Instructions
- CRUST AND CRUMBLE
- Preheat oven to 350Grease a 9-inch removable-bottom tart pan and place this on a baking tray.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, lemon zest, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Add melted margarine (or butter). Using a wooden spoon, combine everything together forming large clumps.
- Using floured hands, press two-thirds of the dough evenly into bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides of a prepared 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom (you could also use a 9-inch cake pan); set aside the rest of the crust and crumble mixture.
- FILLING
- In a small bowl, stir together the blueberries, brown sugar, vinegar, flour and salt. Spoon the filling into the crust, making sure you’re not touching the sides of the pan.
- TOPPING
- Crumble the remaining dough into large crumbs and scatter evenly over the filling, covering most of the surface.
- Bake the tart for 40 - 45 minutes, until lightly browned and blueberry filling bubbles.
- Leave to cool completely in the pan before slicing.
Lindsay says
I’ve made this once already and it is so delish! We visited a blueberry farm today so I’m about to make it again... It is perfectly easy so my young daughter can help. Thank you for this lovely recipe:)
Lora says
Hi Linsday-Thank you! So happy you enjoyed it and are making it again. I appreciate you letting me know. And how LUCKY are you to live near a blueberry farm. One of our best memories is of a summer visiting friends in North Carolina and taking the kids to a blueberry farm. We had huge buckets of blueberries and were baking with the sweet berries for a whole week. Happy Baking! XX Lora