Mornings can be a bear around here and somehow the Dad has been managing to get to work without any breakfast in his belly. Ugh. My goal this past weekend was to find a way to remedy that. I had a bunch of organic berries on hand (thanks to a run to our local warehouse store AND an awesome coupon from our neighborhood Whole Foods. Who can say no to free strawberries? I mean, come on!). I also have a BIG box of oatmeal in the pantry (again, thanks to an earlier run to the warehouse store). So Crumbly Berry Cereal Bars seemed like the ideal solution! Easy to grab on the go, these are vegan and can be made gluten-free too.
makes 1 dozen bars
For the crust:
1 1/2 cups oat flour (you can make your own by processing 2 cups of old-fashion rolled oats in the food processor until they create a light flour)
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 1/4 cups old-fashion rolled oats
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon gluten-free, aluminum-free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup vegan buttery sticks, cut into small pieces
For the filling:
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Zest and juice of one small lemon
1 1/2 cup washed strawberries, stems removed
1 cup washed raspberries
1 heaping tablespoon corn starch
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a 9 x 13 inch baking pan by lining it with a sheet of parchment paper, letting a little overlap the sides. This makes it super easy to get the bars out of the pan. You can spray the parchment and pan with cooking spray or use a bit of vegan buttery spread to grease it.
In a food processor, combine all of the crust ingredients and pulse to combine. You'll know it's done when it looks crumbly and starts to form small balls of dough. Reserve about 1 1/2 cups of the crust mixture and press the rest into the baking pan, making sure that it goes all the way to the edges. Bake in the oven for 12 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the filling. Clean out your food processor and add the filling ingredients. Pulse to combine, only one or two times - you want the filling to have some body to it.
Remove the crust from the oven and pour in the filling. Sprinkle with remaining crust mixture and pat down to even it out. Return the pan to the oven and bake for another 40 minutes or until the topping is golden brown and the filling is bubbly. Allow it to cool completely before removing from the pan by grasping the parchment paper with each hand. Cut into 12 bars and store in the refrigerator.
Linking up for Tidy Mom's I'm Lovin' It Friday!
2 comments:
Ohhhh - I wonder how well it would work with the fruit I have on hand. Those look great.
That's pretty much what we did Gina - it's a great way to use up any lingering fruit in the fridge. I suppose if I were to use apples or another hard fruit like that, I might cook it, like a compote, first though. Hope yours turn out as tasty as ours!
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