Yes, I am going on week three of baking with currants. There are (or were) kind of a lot of them around here. Thus, my freezer still holds a couple of large zip-locks filled with all manner of currant, despite the fact that I’ve made red currant ice cream a couple of times, plus a currant buckle more times than I can count (am still tweaking it). But, even if you don’t have bags of them in your freezer, or are just a currant-hater (truth be told, I used to be) I think it’s fair to say that this crumb-topped shortbread bar merits a trip to the farmers’ market and an about-face regarding any negative opinions you might be harboring about currants. The combo of the uber-tart currant jam, mellowed and sweetened over the stovetop, spread thickly over the crisp brown sugar shortbread base and topped with large buttery crumbs is prize-worthy. 
The idea of incorporating my currants into a crumb-topped bar was a no-brainer, as I was desperate for a sweet vehicle with which to house my tart berries. When I began researching currant crumb bars, to see what my peeps in the blogosphere had done with their currant bars, I came up relatively empty-handed. I found these red currant crumb bars (essentially the currant version of Smitten’s blueberry crumb bar) and I found these shortbread bars (essentially the currant version of Fine Cooking’s cranberry shortbread bar), but that was it. So, I did what all fine recipe internet sleuths do: I combined the idea of the currant crumb bar with the idea of the currant shortbread bar, and, voila!
Except, of course, it wasn’t quite that easy. I still had to answer two age old questions: To cook or not to cook (one’s currants) and to par-bake or not to par-bake (one’s shortbread crust)? The crumb bar/shortbread recipes were kind of all over the place as to whether fruit was cooked and crust par-baked, but I knew instinctually what made the most sense. Currants are like cranberries (okay, not exactly, but bear with me) and cranberries are always cooked and therefore so too should be currants, and because the currants in my buckle experiments kept plummeting to the bottom of my cake, a par-baked crust made sense to discourage currant absorption and to defend against soggy-crust syndrome.
With those two pressing currant bar questions decisively answered, the currant-filled crumb-topped shortbread bar was born (to many oohs and ahhs, I might add). So hightail it to the market if you know what’s good for you (that baking with currants is the bomb) and don’t be afraid. Having joined the currant-obsessed club somewhat recently, I can tell you that you will be awfully pleased with yourself, as will your guests, once you start down the road of current cookery.
[yumprint-recipe id=’59’]
