Strawberry Oatmeal Bars

My family is not the type to accept anything in return for doing you a favor. Get a Grandma or Aunt to watch the baby at the last minute? (Or, in the case of my mom, on a regular basis in place of daycare?) If you try to pay them, not only will you offend them, but you'll get an earful about it. (I have a few funny stories about that, too.) So, I have just learned to provide 'payment' with food. "Oh, you watched the baby for me? Here, have a batch of cookies." No one turns down food. (Not in my family, at least.)

So when Mama agreed to watch Gabriel overnight the other day, in addition to watching him during the week, I knew I should do something nice for her. What to do, what to do. I wanted to try a new recipe for her, one I knew she would like--and I've been eyeing the raspberry oatmeal bars over at Heavenly Homemakers (an awesome blog, btw) since she posted them a couple weeks ago. It's something she's guaranteed to like, but was easy to make when I made the decision at 9:30 at night. 

Essentially, it's a bit like a cereal bar, with jam between 2 layers of an oat mixture. Mmmm!

They even have whole wheat flour & oats--that makes them good for you, right? ;)

It did stress me out to use an entire jar of strawberry jam for this. If these hadn't turned out, I think I would've cried.

 

I did play with the recipe a bit, but there are more changes I would recommend. 1, if using sweetened jam (like I did with my homemade jam), cut down on the brown sugar. Maybe ¼ cup? And 2, cut down on the butter. A lot. I would try ½ to ¾ cup; 1 cup is entirely too much for my tastes. The pan may need to be greased if you cut it down too much, but it would be worth taking the extra butter out. (And please let me know if you try this! I would love to hear how it turns out!) 
 

 Remember: Comments are love! And if you have a problem commenting on the blog, please let me know! I know people have in the past, but I think that should be resolved,
 

Strawberry Oatmeal Bars

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
• 1 ½ cups rolled oats
• ¼ - ¾ cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• ½ - 1 cup butter, melted
• ¾ cup strawberry jam, warmed (Or blackberry, or blueberry, or peach, or apple jelly, or....whatever!)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together dry ingredients.  Stir in melted butter until crumbly. (You need to be able to press it into the pan, but don't necessarily want it to be soaked in butter.) 
3. Press half of the mixture into an 8”x8” baking pan.  Spread jam evenly over the top.  Sprinkle remaining oat mixture on top of the jam layer, pressing down to cover.
4. Bake for 30 minutes or until lightly browned.

Yield/Time

20 pieces

45 minutes

Source (for original): Heavenly Homemakers