Blackberry Lime Bars

These blackberry lime bars are creamy, bright, and super delicious. I learned long ago that women love chocolate and men love berry desserts… supposedly, but that is so not the case with my husband and I. I definitely prefer all things berry and he is all about the chocolate. Well, unless it’s his favorite lime pie from Brazil. Which is where this recipe came from. His lime pie recipe that he learned while living in Brazil is made with a cracker crumb crust, sweetened condensed milk, media crema, eggs and lime juice of course. One day we were trying to decide on dessert and he voted for his pie, but I was in the mood for blackberries. The juicy blackberries were making the filling too soupy when baked, so we took the crema out and it turned out perfect. It totally reminds me of the lemon bars from this post, but I love them even more.

And, while you are making your shopping list to make the Blackberry Lime bars…
You may have missed part one and two of our little miracle

After exactly one year of searching for a job he started to interview with a new company. This one came from a friend who’s family owns the business, or did, but anyway it’s a long story.
Ok, so he starts to interview and the first of December, after two months of interviewing and crappy communication from the company he finally gets offered the position.

We were hesitant. Very. The poor communication was one thing, but also when we were doing research online about the company we literally looked for three hours and only found lawsuits, angry ex employees, angry businesses etc. It made us pretty nervous. We kept going back and forth about everything. We knew it was a large company dealing with a bunch of truckers and so obviously it leaves a lot of room for people to get mad about anything. We decided to offer up a lot of prayer and make a final decision. We had been without a job for so long and while we felt a little weary of the company we felt pretty peaceful about the job. We said yes, then offered up a lot of daily prayer that we would be able to get in somewhere else and make some decisions about the future. That was the first of December. The hubby was laid off in April.

So April rolls around and although our benefits were supposed to start, we instead received an email notifying us that benefits were pushed back to May 1. Then, slowly but surely, my husband’s entire team began to be laid off. Cade knew his time was probably coming, but kept working hard. By the next week he finally got pulled in to the office as the last one to be let go. He was reassured that it was all politics, but after talking things through he was finally told that this is just how “said company” works. They hire people on, set unreasonable goals, get new leads, pass them off to the senior account managers and then lay them off.

Cade came home and let me know what had happened, and strangely enough we felt completely peaceful about everything. As if this was how things were supposed to go. The end of the week was his brother’s college graduation, which we hadn’t been planning on attending since it was right during work. Now we were excited to be able to go. We went back and forth about one of us going and the other staying home with the kids, but we just couldn’t shake the feeling that both of us should be there. Friday came, we packed the kids up and drove down to Orem for the graduation. We had no idea that attending this graduation would change our direction in life forever…

To be continued…

Blackberry Lime Bars
Crust
1 1/2 Sticks or 12 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter, Melted
2 3/4 Cups Graham Cracker Crumbs
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
Filling
2 (14oz) Cans Sweetened Condensed Milk
2 1/2 Teaspoons Lime Zest
1 Cup Lime Juice, Fresh
4 Egg Yolks, slightly beaten
2 Pint Blackberries, fresh

If you haven’t already, grind the graham crackers in a food processor, blender or in a ziploc with a rolling pin.
Heat the oven to 350, and grease a 9×13″ baking dish.

In a large bowl stir together the graham cracker crumbs, butter, sugar, and salt. Press the crust mixture into your greased baking dish and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until slightly golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the counter while you prepare the filling.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the sweetened condensed milk, and eggs. Add the lime juice and zest and whisk thoroughly. Fold in the blackberries, being careful not to break them. Pour into the baked crust and place in the oven.
Bake for an additional 12-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely and then refrigerate at least 30 minutes until set.

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