Easiest raspberry crumb bars made with preserves and fresh raspberries sandwiched between a layer of buttery, flaky crust and a sweet, oatmeal topping, plus a glaze for good measure!
Prep Time: 15 minutesminutes
Cook Time: 35 minutesminutes
0 minutesminutes
Total Time: 50 minutesminutes
Servings:16bars
Ingredients
Crust
1cupbutter, melted
½cupsugar
2teaspoonsalmond or vanilla extract, or 1 teaspoon of each
½teaspoonsalt
2cupflour
Filling
1cupraspberry preserves
1cupfresh raspberries, divided
Crumb topping
8tablespoonsbutter, chilled
½cupbrown sugar
½cupold fashioned rolled oats
¾cupflour
¼teaspoonsalt
Glaze
1cuppowdered sugar
½teaspoonvanilla , or almond extract
3-6tablespoonsmilk, ,as needed
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line an 8x8 inch square baking pan with foil or parchment paper.
Prepare the crust
In a large bowl combine melted butter, sugar, and extract. Stir together.
Add salt and flour and stir.
Press dough into prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes.
Prepare the filling
Stir and gently mash half of the fresh raspberries into the raspberry preserves.
Spread filling onto prepared crust. Top with remaining fresh raspberries.
Prepare the crumb topping
Dice the chilled butter into small cubes.
In a medium bowl stir together brown sugar, oats, flour, and salt. Add butter and mash with a fork (or pulse in a food processor!) til coarse crumbs form. Sprinkle over filling.
Finish it up
Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool before cutting into bars. (You can pop it into the fridge to speed this up).
While cooling, prepare the glaze by stirring together the powdered sugar, extract, and enough milk to make the glaze easily pourable. Drizzle over bars and serve.
Notes
When made as written, this recipe makes 12-16 bars just depending on how large you cut the bars at the end. It can easily be doubled in a 9x13 pan for more bars (they'll be thicker and need 5-10 minutes longer in the oven).
If you're impatient, like me, you can pop the pan into the oven (place a dish towel underneath if the pan is still hot) to speed up the cooling process. Bonus: these taste AMAZING chilled!
The glaze is optional but definitely recommended - it just takes the whole dessert to the next level and looks super pretty!
These bars would work great with blackberries or even a combination of both raspberries and blackberries.