You know those times when you need a treat and you’ve got to just go with whatever is in your pantry at the moment?? Everyone needs a few go-to recipes in the arsenal for times like that. At my house, those recipes include these Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars, standard No-Bakes, and these Raspberry Almond Cookie Bars. I almost always, always, have everything I need on hand for these. It’s just flour, sugar, butter, oats, egg, and whatever jam I can scrape up in the fridge or pantry. They’re also really quick to mix up.
One of the great things about this recipe is that you really are just dumping everything into a bowl here. Both brown and white sugar, flour, salt, and oats.
Then pop in some butter and an egg. It is important that your butter is at room temperature. We’re not taking the time to “cut” in the butter, so it needs to be softer than fridge-chilled, but you also don’t want it melted. So if you can remember, just pop the butter out on the counter, chop it into chunks, and let it sit for a bit before starting. If you’re softening in the microwave, do your best to not melt it like you usually do. (Admit it, you usually do. We all do.) Another great tip is to just use a cheese grater to grate straight-from-the-fridge butter right into your bowl.
You’ll take part of that dough and press it into an 8×8 pan. I like to line my pan with parchment or foil, because it makes it easy to remove the bars when when you’re ready to cut them.
Next, you’ll spread jam on top. You can really use any flavor you like. The raspberry-almond combo is one of my favorites, but almond really goes with just about any fruit flavor. I would suggest using a high quality preserves though.
I put 3/4 cup in the recipe, and I do kind of a heaping 3/4 cup, just a little less than a full cup. Crumble the rest of the dough on top.
Totally optional, but I also like to sprinkle some coarse turbinado sugar on top. I kind of sprinkle tubinado on top of any and all baked good these days.
Pop those in the oven and bake them until the top looks set and slightly golden brown.
One of the hardest parts is waiting for these to cool before cutting into them. They really do taste better completely cooled, and it helps the jam to set up too. So if you need to make something hours ahead of time, this is a good bet.
The bottom layer is like a soft, chewy cookie, then the jam in the middle is gooey and sweet, and the top gets a little toasty crunch. It’s the perfect combo.
Try these once and I bet they’ll make it into the regular summer rotation!
Raspberry-Almond Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
- 1 cup old fashioned oats
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt if using table salt, decrease to 1/2 teaspoon
- 1 cup butter 2 sticks at room temperature
- 1 egg slightly beaten
- 1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
- 3/4 cups raspberry preserves
- 1 tablespoon coarse turbinado sugar optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8×8 pan with a parchment sling (lay an 8″ strip of parchment across bottom of pan so it hangs over each end, and then lay another the opposite direction. Alternately you could just line the pan with foil, or simply spray with non-stick spray. Lining the pan makes it easy to remove the bars and cut.)
- Combine flour, white and brown sugars, oats, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer. Cut butter into chunks and add to bowl along with beaten egg and almond extract. Turn mixer on and let mix until the mixture comes together into a cohesive dough that looks like coarse crumbs. Remove 2 cups of dough (about half) and set aside. Press remaining dough into the bottom of the prepared pan. Spread preserves on top, avoiding the very edge of dough. Take remaining dough and crumble on top of preserves in an even layer. If desired, sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
- Bake for 40-50 minutes until slightly golden brown on top. Cool completely before cutting into squares.
Questions & Reviews
@Shelly #6:
Although you would, of course, want to check with your doctor for sure, imitation almond extract is not made from almonds, but is a chemical as many extracts are. I am pretty sure you could use it even for someone with nut allergies.
they look delish – will they freeze well?
I thought you posted a workout plan in January but I cannot find it can you send to me?
Can you pop it out of the pan to cool? Or do you leave it in there until it’s cooled all the way? I just took mine out of the oven, and it smells so divine! My kids were super excited to hear I was making an OBB treat tonight!
If you pull it out of the pan right away while it’s hot it can fall apart. But you can definitely pull it out once it cools down to just warm (anything to speed up the wait time, right?! lol)
Hi, these look fabulous. My son is allergic to all nuts. Is there a substitute for the almond extract? Would vanilla extract work? Thanks!
Yep, vanilla is fine, or you can even leave it out completely.
When we had to avoid almond extract at our house I would sometimes jazz up baked goods with a drop of Fiore di Sicilia, which has a citrusy, woodsy flavor.
OH crap. I have all those ingredients. Nap, or bake? Okay, both, but in what order?!? Such a delightful dilemma 🙂
I don’t love the texture of oats in baked goods. If I put them in the food processor for just a couple of pulses, do you think the dough would still be okay?
The oat ratio is actually pretty thinned out so it’s not super oat-y, but I bet they’d be just fine if you pulsed them first.
How do you think the addition of mini chocolate chips would work here? Just based off of the sweet/richness? Maybe dark chocolate chips?
I would probably do dark chocolate, and chop them up a bit!
I have done this recipe dairy free with coconut oil and soy free earth balance and then added mini vegan chocolate chips (basically semi/dark chocolate) and they were sooo good. Seriously, I never make them without the chocolate :).
These sound delicious. We, too, have lots of open jam jars in the fridge, and my husband just made a fresh batch of strawberry jam.
I like this shortbread-crust type with rye:
http://orangette.blogspot.com/2012/03/best-part-of-job.html
Oh those look yummy! We frequently seem to end up with 4 jars of jam open in the fridge so it will be perfect next time I need to use some up!
Ha, seriously with the 4 jars of open jam. That’s my fridge, too!