A few months ago, I went on a small journey of seeing what I could create from scratch. It was my birthday month and I wanted to do a whole month of “a thing a day”. I started with butter then yogurt. Both came out good so those are now weekly staples I make. Then I tried my hand at condiments like ketchup, mayo and mustard. The mustard was a big no -ha, I can’t even begin to describe that! But then I tried making jam. Jam without pectin that is. All of the recipes I ran across included pectin…. I did some digging and found that lemon juice actually contains pectin. I tried it and it worked beautifully! Delicious, not overly sweet and perfectly jammy! That beautiful jam has now become a weekly staple… we smear it on toast, muffins, or swirl in yogurt. With being away last weekend, we had a good bit of jam left. I thought why not, let’s make a summery dessert! Enter these crumb bars. Easy to throw together with a buttery oat crust, topped with fresh jam and a little of that oat crumbled on top. Baked to perfection in about 30 minutes. I found inspiration here: Raspberry Jam Oat Bars – RecipeTin Eats
Ingredients:
- Strawberry Jam
- 2 pounds of strawberries (washed and chopped)
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 2 Tbsp Lemon juice
- Oat Crumble Bars
- 125g unsalted butter (roughly a stick)
- 2/3 cup brown sugar (packed)
- 1 egg
- 1 1/4 cups flour (We love King Arthur Gluten free All Purpose)
- 1 1/2 cup rolled oats (gluten free if necessary)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cup jam
Let’s make the Jam first!
In a small sauce pot bring the berries, sugar and lemon juice to a boil. Reduce to medium and keep stirring every so often. We don’t want the jam to burn or stick to the bottom. In roughly 30 to 40 minutes, you’ll see it becoming a more jam like consistency. At this point, I turn off the burner and use my immersion blender to get out any lumps so, it’s a bit smoother. Set aside to cool.
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350 and butter (or oil) an 8×8 pan. Set aside.
- Melt the butter, either stove top or microwave in a large bowl.
- Add the brown sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and oats. Mix well.
- Add the egg and vanilla. Make sure everything is well incorporated. It should stick together and look like wet crumbled cookie dough.
- Take 2 cups of this mixture and press down into the buttered 8×8 pan. It should cover the bottom and give a good base layer.
- Next spread prepared jam over top.
- Lastly, sprinkle the leftover crumble mixture over the jam layer. It should give a nice cover over the jam.
- Bake for 35 minutes. Let cool before slicing. 12 servings.
Notes:
- I bet these bars would be good with about any filling… so many jam options out there! I am looking forward to trying them again in a few weeks with pumpkin butter!
- Store bought jam is perfectly fine too!
- I don’t use a microwave. For melting the butter, I would do 30 second increments if using one. Otherwise, the stovetop worked well, and I used a large enough pot, so it was only one dish!
Cheers to our next adventure!
Our Fabled Nest 
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