Print the recipe card! raspberry squares
Everyone loves these!
I like using my tart pan to make these in for how easy it is to remove them after baking and also because it will then also work in my sun oven to bake if wanted. If you don’t have a tart pan you can line a pan with foil (in both directions) and after it’s baked just lift out the entire block to place on a cutting board to cut.
Makes 20-25 squares
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 cups quick cooking oats
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans or almonds
1/2 cup Thrive butter powder (*see note)
1 TBS olive oil
1 cup raspberry preserves
Instructions:
Set your oven to 350 and spray your baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. In a bowl, mix the flour, oats, sugars, baking soda, salt and nuts. In a separate bowl, combine 1/2 cup Thrive butter powder with 3 TBS water and add this to the flour mixture. Add 1 TBS light flavored olive oil and mix with clean hands until the flour mixture resembles wet sand.
Transfer 2/3 of mixture to the prepared pan and press crumbs evenly into bottom. Bake until starting to brown, about 15 minutes. Using a spatula spread preserves evenly over hot bottom crust; sprinkle remaining oat/nut mixture evenly over preserves. Bake another 30 minutes, until preserves bubble around edges and top is golden brown. Cool on wire rack to room temperature, about an hour and a half, then remove from pan and cut into squares and serve.
Mix butter and oil into the oat/flour mixture until you have a “wet sand” consistency.
Press crumb mixture into the pan. I like using my heavy measuring cup for most of it (*see note), then pressing the edges to finish off with my fingers.
Pop into the oven to bake about 15 minutes, then spread with preserves.
Return to the oven to bake 30 minutes until the top is browned and the preserves are bubbling.
And here it is all golden and yummy! You’ll have to wait another hour or so for it to cool off.
After it’s cooled, remove it from the baking pan and cut into squares.
Set them out to serve and see how fast they disappear!
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Notes:
- There are some wacky powdered butters out there, including a few I’d never touch again with a 10 foot pole. I’m able to vouch however for Thrive’s brand. If you’ve tried another brand that’s been acceptable please leave us all a comment so we know which other ones to try!
- I love my metal measuring cup set — it’s totally going to last until my kids’ kids are cooking for their kids. I found it over at Williams Sonoma.
I like these better than the Nutrigrain bars for breakfast and snacks, I normally just lightly sprinkle with brown sugar or a drizzle of honey to get the top to caramelize a bit stick together since the preserves are normally sweet enough.These are absolutely to die for if you splurge with a little Nutella chocolate-hazlenut spread.
I especially love the crumb crusts because I absolutely cannot make a decent pastry crust (that’s DH’s job LOL).
Wow, I can imagine Nutella is going to be awesome with these! Not to mention that Nutella is one of my husband’s favorite things anyway!
These are ridiculously easy to make and are great for breakfast, snacks and desserts. I think I’ve tried this recipe with nearly every fruit preserve/marmalade under the sun, and the only failure was the mislabeled jar of tomato chutney. It also works subbing peanut butter, marshmallow creme, honey or thick maple syrup for the preserves. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that mashed rehydrated freeze-dried fruit with a pinch of sugar also works.
I didn’t think about using these outside of dessert, I bet it would make a fun breakfast bar (I’ll cut the sugar for that). Funny about the tomato chutney.