Easy Cherry Oatmeal Bars (gluten free)
Super Easy Cherry Oatmeal Bars are a cross between warm cherry pie and cherry crisp, only in bar form! With a plant-based buttery cookie crust and homemade cherry pie filling, these bars are a healthier, simpler take on a classic recipe that’s sure to be a crowd pleaser!
Equipment
- 1 8x8 baking dish
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cup almond flour *
- 1 cup rolled oats gluten free
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup plant-based butter * very cold, in cubes
- 1 egg
- 3 tablespoon maple syrup *
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract optional
- 1-2 tablespoon rolled oats, for topping optional
Cherry Filling
- 1 frozen cherries, 10-12 oz bag roughly 2 cups
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- zest of one lemon
- 2 teaspoon arrowroot flour *
Sugar-Free Glaze Drizzle
- ⅔ cup powdered monk fruit*
- 3-4 tsp fresh lemon or orange juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350, line baking dish with parchment paper
- In a large bowl, add almond flour, rolled oats, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, then using a fork, break apart the cold butter into the dry ingredients. Mix together using your fingers to break down the butter as much as possible into the mixture, then place in fridge while you make the pie filling.
- Using a small-medium sized saucepan over med-high heat, bring to boil a 10-12oz bag of frozen cherries with lemon juice and lemon zest. Once boiling for roughly 3 minutes, turn the heat to low and allow to simmer for 20-30 minutes. Add arrowroot powder and using a potato masher, mash cherries down into preferred consistency. Set aside.
- In a small bowl, mix the remaining wet ingredients (egg, maple syrup, vanilla extract, almond extract) and then remove the dry, butter mixture from fridge.
- Whisk the wet ingredients into to the large bowl, mixing together until you get a crumbly texture.
- Take ⅔ of dough mixture and place into lined baking dish. Spread evenly, pressing firmly into pan. Then, spread cherry filling over the dish evenly. Take the remainder of the dough and crumble on top of cherry filling. Sprinkle top with rolled oats.
- Bake in oven for 30-40 minutes and allow to cool. While oatmeal bars are cooling, make the glaze drizzle if you'd like by mixing together powdered monk fruit sweetener and fresh lemon juice. Using a spoon or fork, evenly drizzle on bars, slice and enjoy!
Notes
Almond flour - instead of almond flour, oat flour, coconut flour, or a gluten-free 1:1 all purpose flour would work just as well. The texture of the base may be a tad different, but quite similar.
Butter - Grassfed butter would work well as a replacement. I would stick to a butter, rather than replacing the ingredient with an oil. Ghee would work as well.
Sweetener - I used a little maple syrup as a natural sweetener for this recipe, but I imagine monk fruit, honey, coconut sugar, or your general cane sugar would work well.
Arrowroot flour - Cornstarch or Tapioca starch would be good alternatives to this recipe if needed.
Powdered monk fruit sugar - place monk fruit sugar in a blender (I used a small nutribullet) and blend away! This will make the perfect sugar-free powdered sugar. You could also use regular powdered sugar if you'd like.