Cooks 2025 | Feature

Raspberry Bars for the Road

Perfect treats for a long journey.

My partner transplanted a small raspberry bush from the side of McCarthy Road in rural McCarthy, Alaska, 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 Alaska (and Northern Nevada) and 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, when I can go out in the morning and pick a handful for my morning yogurt. I like to pick their leaves 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 bring some of that flavor with you — it’s a great snack for road trips (see “Rethink Your Road Trip Rations” story) — or save it for later, I recommend baking some raspberries into these bars. With inspiration from a Linzer torte, this recipe adds walnut and cinnamon to the crust, which gives it a warm, earthy flavor.

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RASPBERRY BARS

Prep Time25 minutes mins

Cook Time55 minutes mins

Cooling Time30 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr 50 minutes mins

Servings: 12 bars

Author: Kristin Link, first appeared in edible Alaska’s Summer 2023 edition

Ingredients

• 1½ cups walnuts
• 1½ cups all-purpose flour
• ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1½ sticks 12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
• 1 egg
• 2½ cups fresh raspberries frozen work, too
• ½ cup slivered almonds optional

Instructions

• 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 and form little 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 with now or later (steep them in boiling water for 2 minutes). Drink tea and eat a handful of raspberries.
• Prepare baking pan by greasing it and lining it with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
• Remove dough from the refrigerator and divide in half. Press half of dough into the bottom of the pan to form a bottom crust about ½-inch thick.
• Cover with raspberries and sprinkle with sugar (if using wild raspberries). Put remaining dough on top as a crumb topping. Let blobs of dough fall in place and cover most of the raspberries. Top with slivered almonds if you want. Put in oven for 45 to 60 minutes, or until top is light brown and crisp. Let cool and slice into bars.