Blackberry Oat Bars

These blackberry oat bars are two things: easy and delicious. They seriously disappeared from the Cal Giant kitchen in seconds. And it’s no wonder, since they are inspired by the blueberry bars found at Starbucks. My original plan was to make the blueberry version, but I accidentally grabbed blackberries instead of blueberries at the grocery store, so here we are! They say everything happens for a reason, right?

Our version was inspired by a recipe found on food.com

All you need is:

2 cups quick-cooking oats

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup brown sugar

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda

3⁄4 cup butter, softened

3 cups fresh blackberries or blueberries or raspberries

1⁄2 cup sugar

1⁄3 cup orange juice

4 teaspoons cornstarch

DIRECTIONS

Blackberry filling: In saucepan, bring blackberries, sugar and orange juice to boil; reduce heat and simmer until tender, about 10 minutes. Whisk in cornstarch and boil, stirring, until thickened, about 1 minute. Place plastic wrap directly on surface; refrigerate until cooled, about 1 hour or up to 1 day before using.

Base and crumble topping: In a large bowl, stir together the oats, flour, brown sugar, salt and baking soda. Cut in the butter to form a crumbly mixture. Reserve 1 1/2 cups of the crumbs, and pat the rest evenly into the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 inch pan.

Spread the blackberry mixture over the base. Crumble the reserved amount of the base/topping over the blueberry mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees F until light golden, about 40-45 minutes. Let cool completely on rack as these cut better when they are fully set.

What do you think? What berries would you use in this recipe? Sound off in the comments below!