FRUITY OATMEAL BARS

 I have a recipe for some fruity oatmeal bars that I found a month or so ago that I kept wanting to make but always found an excuse not to. Now I don't know which cookbook where I found it. I will look for it though when I have some time since I have too many potential cookbooks right now to skim through. I am interested in how similar the recipe is to this one. 

The recipe was called Apricot Oatmeal Bars but since I needed to make something sugar-free and I didn't have any sugar-free apricot jam, I did what I often do...I made the recipe my own and made Strawberry Oatmeal Bars and made them S-F.

When I sat down to write this post, I decided to call it Fruity Oatmeal Bars since you could use any fruit jam/preserves and have a delectable treat. I'm not adding Sugar-Free to the title of the post, since I don't want anyone to not check it out because they don't make sugar-free desserts. So many times when I make something sugar-free it wasn't written that way. I just substitute sugar-free ingredients for the regular sugar ingredients. 

As I said earlier, feel free to use any of your favorite jams/preserves in the recipe. I have a feeling I will be making these again and using a different sugar-free jam to give it a different flavor. I will write the recipe for sugared ingredients and then add my sugar-free option in parentheses.

PRINT RECIPE.

FRUITY OATMEAL BARS 

1        yellow cake mix ( I used a zero sugar yellow cake mix)

3        cups old fashioned oats

3/4     cup chopped pecans (I omitted to make it nut-free)

1        cup (2 sticks) butter, melted

1-1/2  cups (12 oz jar) your favorite jam or preserves (I used a sugar-free strawberry preserves.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Spray or grease a 9 x 13 - inch baking pan. Set aside.

Combine the dry cake mix and oats in a large mixing bowl to evenly distribute the oats with the cake mix.

Add the melted butter and stir with a wooden spoon until the dry ingredients are wet.

Spoon half of the mixture into the pan and flatten with your fingertips. (I didn't do a very good job guessing half and had more on the top than on the bottom for a crust. Worked out okay, but next time, I will error on the side of a thicker crust. This picture isn't my "half", I always work with little amounts. That way I don't have to work hard trying to get it evenly spread out. )

Spread the jam with a spatula evenly over the pressed crust.

Sprinkle the rest of the cake/oats mixture over the top.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until brown on the top. (I baked mine for 25 minutes, but it never got brown.)

Allow to cool completely before cutting into serving-size pieces.

I baked mine the night before, covered and stored in the refrigerator before removing the bars from the pan. That way they didn't crumble as I removed them from the pan. It also allowed the strawberry flavor to be enriched.