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!
