January 22, 2006

Oatmeal Fruit Bar Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup flour (i use whole wheat)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup sweetener
1/2 cup butter
2 cups fruit (save juice)
2 tablespoons reserved fruit juice

Directions:
Mix everything together except the fruit and fruit juice until you have a crumbly mixture. Add fruit juice to hold crumbs together.

Spread half of the crumb mixture into the bottom of an 8 in. x 8 in. pan. Spread the fruit on top of that and cover with the remainder of the crumbly mixture.

Bake for 30 minutes at 375 F. The recipe i took this from says you should cut this into 24 bars but between Rob and myself we managed 2 servings each plus I was able to set some aside for his plane trip tomorrow.

Meg Notes: For the one cup flour, I mix in a little of whatever is on hand: freshly ground hard red wheat and corn flour, for instance. For the 1/2 cup sweetener, I've used 1/4 c. sucanut and 1/4 c. maple syrup or just 1/2 c. sucanut. i may try it with agave nectar some time.

Variation: I've also made this with dried fruit mixed with a little orange juice concentrate. I didn't like it as much but Nathan preferred it. Another thought, and I haven't tried this yet, would be to cook down some apples and put them in the middle.

5 comments:

  1. I think she means a sugar substitute like saccharin splenda, or nutra sweet

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  2. this looks so tasty. do you have a particular fruit that you prefer?

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  3. sweetener means anything works. you can use white sugar if you want. i use a blend of sucanut (which is freeze dried cane syrup) and maple. i've considered using agave nectar (which is similar in taste to honey but made from the leaves of agave plants). i don't like the substitutes like splenda or nutra sweet, but the original recipe called for those for diabetics who were making this.

    i think i like berries best so far. but i'm a berry kinda person. i think apricots or apples would work, but you'd have to cook them a bit with a bit of sugar/sweetener first... like you do for a cobbler.

    if you're ever in san francisco, stop by the Atlas Cafe (at the corner of alabama and 20th street). they have a great fruit bar that's essentially this same thing. i've missed them since we moved here and finally got it together to find some sort of recipe and try it out the bar at the atlas is a bit more compacted, i think. and they use berries and peaches in theirs.

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