Forgot to take your egg out early? Warm water bath for five minutes fixes that problem instantly. I do this more often than I’d like to admit because I’m terrible at planning ahead. Don’t overmix your crumble – those butter chunks create magic when they hit the oven heat. Think of it like making biscuits – overworking kills the flakiness.

Frozen berries work great but don’t thaw them first – they’ll make everything soggy and you’ll end up with purple pancakes instead of bars. I buy berries in bulk when they’re cheap and freeze them in recipe-sized portions. When the edges bubble and the top looks golden, you’re golden too. If the crumble still looks pale after forty-five minutes, give it another five or ten.

Here’s a trick from my disaster-prone early days – line your pan with parchment that hangs over the edges like little handles. Makes lifting the whole thing out so much easier for cutting. No more digging bars out with a spatula and ending up with a mangled mess.

Temperature matters more than you think. If your kitchen is really warm, pop that butter back in the fridge for ten minutes before mixing. Hot kitchens and baking don’t always play nice together. I learned this during one sweltering August when my “crumble” turned into paste because everything was too warm.