Raspberry Oatmeal Crumble Bars

 

 

The votes came in and bars were the clear winner. I immediately thought I would find a bar recipe that used candy so I could incorporate both into the theme. Bars with Reeses Pieces were my choice and I even ended up making twice recipes back to back that tasted absolutely delicious and thrilled my coworkers but refused to photography nicely.

 

(The crust kept breaking and I kept ending up with lopsided bars that wouldn't sit pretty for pictures.) Determining that candy and I were just not getting along, I decided to go another route. You can never go wrong with a bar recipe that includes a stick of butter and oatmeal. Or if you can, I don't want to know about it.

 

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 8x8 baking dish with foil and spray with non-stick spray.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, oats and salt.
3. Melt the butter either on the stove or in the microwave. Stir in both sugars and the vanilla, whisking to combine.
4.Pour the butter mixture over the oats and stir to combine, until no lumps of raw flour remain.
5. Scoop out a heaping cup of the mixture and set aside. Press the rest of the mixture into the prepared pan, using your fingers or the back of a spatula to get it into an even layer.
6. Spread the raspberry preserves on top and then use the remaining crumble mixture to cover the top.
7. Bake for 30 minutes or until the topping is golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool for at least 2 hours for the bars to set. Cut into 4 strips, rotate the pan and cut 4 more times, creating 16 evenly sized bars.

I opted to reduce the sugar a little bit in the recipe because I knew the raspberry preserves I was using was pretty sweet. I think these turned out to have a nice balance of fruit and sweet without being cloyingly sweet. As expected, my coworkers practically inhaled these.