- Welcome back to "The Baking Journal."

Today we are making the perfect summer dessert that you can take to a potluck, a summer party, or a picnic, strawberry basil bars.

(gentle music) These bars have a buttery crumb base with a sweet and tart strawberry basil filling, and topped off with a crunchy, oat and pecan topping.

Let's get started.

Let's start by preheating our oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and get our pan ready.

When baked, these bars can be a little tricky getting out of the pan, so that's why we're lining a nine by 13 inch pan with foil and leaving an overhang to give us something to help ease the bars out of the pan.

Spray the foil with cooking spray and let's move on to making our cookie base.

Add the flour, salt, and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer and then mix in two sticks of softened butter, a tablespoon at a time until the mixture looks like wet sand.

This looks perfect.

Save one cup of the mixture for the topping and then spread the remainder into the pan.

Press down gently and bake for 16 to 18 minutes.

While the crust is baking, prepare the crumb topping.

Add the brown sugar, oats, and pecans to the reserved flour mixture and stir together.

Add the remaining two tablespoons of butter, working it into the flour sugar mixture until you have a pebbly texture.

Refrigerate until ready to use.

Stir together the chopped strawberries, two tablespoons of granulated sugar, lemon zest, and chopped basil in a large bowl.

Let them sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes until the strawberry start to release their juice.

Add the strawberry preserves and gently mashed together to break up the strawberries a bit.

When the bottom crust is done baking, spread the strawberry mixture on top of the crust and top with the crumble mixture.

Increase the oven temperature to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until gold and brown and the filling is bubbling out.

Cool the bars at room temperature for several hours.

Once they are cooled, then use the foil to lift the bars from the pan.

And there you have it, strawberry basil bars, I can't wait to give these a try.

(gentle upbeat music) These bars are delicious.

The strawberry basil jammed filling is awesome.

I really do hope you give these a try at home.

Thank you for watching "The Baking Journal," and if you enjoyed this video, please don't forget to like and subscribe, and I'll see you next time.