recipes/cranberry-oatmeal-bars.md

Cranberry Oatmeal Bars

Originally from: https://cookthestory.com/cranberry-oatmeal-bars-easy-dessert-recipe/

Makes: 24 bars

Ingredients

• 2 cups old fashioned rolled oats (160g)
• 2 cups flour (240g, can mix half white, half brown)
• 1 cup brown sugar (220g)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened (227g)
• 1 can cranberry sauce (14oz can or 396g)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350°F/176°C.
2. In a large bowl mix together the oats, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Use your fingers to rub in the butter into the dry ingredients. Then keep rubbing until you can’t really find any butter in the mixture anymore because your fingers have melted it quite a bit and it has mixed in so well into the flour and oats.
4. Spoon three-quarters of the oat mixture into an ungreased 13″x 9″ cake pan. Press down on it firmly everywhere to form a firm layer that evenly covers the bottom of the pan.
5. Add the cranberry sauce in dollops and spread it in a thin layer over the oat layer.
6. Sprinkle with the remaining oat mixture. Press down lightly on the oats so that they adhere to the wet cranberry sauce a bit.
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Note that the topping will not change color but it is still done.
8. Allow to cool in the pan on a wire rack. Cut into 8 strips along the length of the pan and 3 strips along the width yielding 24 bars. Use a spatula to remove the bars from the pan.

Notes

• The first time I made this I under estimated the amount of butter by half and the crust was dry and crumbly
• I used half the amount of brown sugar so that I could give some bars to the baby