This strawberry oat bars recipe combines luscious homemade strawberry filling with a buttery shortbread crust and a nutty crumble topping, creating a perfect mix of flavors and textures. With each bite, you'll experience the burst of sweet strawberries mingling with the rich and crumbly layers. These bars are perfect for any occasion, be it cozy breakfast treat, a delightful afternoon snack, or a crowd-pleasing dessert.
These strawberry oat bars consist of a layer of crust made using quick oats, plain flour, almond flour, and brown sugar. It’s pressed into a loaf pan and topped generously with the lovely delicious homemade strawberry filling. To top these all, a layer of buttery crumble made using the same ingredients as the crust plus a good amount of roasted almond nibs is sprinkled generously all over the strawberry filling and then baked to perfection. The results – deliciously buttery crust bars with sweet strawberries and nutty crunchy topping. Sounds good, right?
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❤️Why you will love this recipe
- And they are so easy and fast to put together that this would make a great treat if you need to whip up a dessert or tea time treat in a short period of time.
- Having the strawberry filling made ahead of time would save even more time. But if you don’t, both the filling and the oat bars can be whipped up within an hour.
- The strawberry oat bars are absolutely delicious. You can eat them from breakfast, as a snack and even for dessert.
📋Ingredients
Here is what you need to make these delicious fruit filled oat bars:
- Instant oatmeal - I prefer to use instant oatmeal as it is finer than rolled oats.
- All purpose flour - sift to break any lumps.
- Ground almonds - adds a nutty flavor to the crust and matches the crumble topping.
- Brown sugar - sweetens the shortbread crust.
- Butter - I use salted butter. If you are using unsalted butter, you may need to increase the salt in the recipe.
- Strawberry fruit filling - homemade with fresh strawberries.
- Almond nibs - you can purchase these separately or make them yourself by chopping almond nuts into small pieces.
- Salt - enhances the taste of the bars.
*Refer to the recipe card below for exact quantities of the ingredients above. For best results, use a digital kitchen scale where applicable*
🧾Substitution and variations
- I chose to use almond nibs in my strawberry oat bars and that is to complement the almond meal I added to the crust. That being said, you can replace the almond nuts with any other nuts you like. Simply chop and dry roast them in the same way as the almonds before adding to the crumble mix.
- If you are not a fan of nuts, simply leave them out.
- You can make these oat bars with other fruit fillings like blueberry filling, or you can even use other fruit jams to make these delicious fruit treats.
This recipe has not been tested with other substitutions or variations. If you do try, please let me know in the comments section below!
👩🏻🍳How to make
Making the oats crust
- Start the process by preparing the oat bar crust. Measure the flour, instant oats, brown sugar, salt and almond flour into a bowl and mix them all with a whisk.
- Next, add the butter (at room temperature) and blend it into the flour mix with a mixer. At this point, the dough would be soft and of a cookie dough consistency.
- Save ½ cup of the crust and press the remaining into a lined loaf tin. Make sure the crust on the sides is slightly higher compared to the center. This is to contain the strawberry filling and ensure that it does not overflow on the sides.
- Next is the filling for the oat bar. Fill the crust with the strawberry filling until it is the same level as the sides of the crust.
- And finally, cover the top of the strawberry oat bar with the nutty crumble mix. To make the crumble mix, use the ½ cup crust saved earlier, mix it with 3 tablespoons of dry roasted almond nibs and sprinkle it evenly all over the strawberry topping.
- Bake the strawberry oat bar for 25 minutes until the top turns golden brown.
Let the strawberry oat bar rest in the tin for a few minutes before lifting it out by holding the parchment lining on the sides. Let the bar cool down to room temperature before cutting it into smaller bars.
🍽️Serving & storage
- These oat bars last for a good 2 days at room temperature. Leftovers are best kept refrigerated.
💡Expert tips
- Roasting the almond nibs will ensure they are nice and crunchy after baking the oat bars. If you do not roast the nuts, they will not be as crunchy after the baking as they should.
💭FAQs
There are 2 ways to roast the almond nibs. Firstly, you can simply dry roast them in a pan over the stove. Place the chopped almonds in a dry pan (oil is not required) and roast them over very low heat. Keep stirring to ensure they are consistently roasted.
Once they start turning golden brown and you get the roasted nuts smell, you can turn off the fire. Transfer the almonds to a wide plate and spread them out to cool. It is best that they are not left in the pan after removing them from the heat as the heat from the pan will continue to roast the nuts resulting in your nuts being over-roasted.
The other method is to use the oven to roast the nuts. Simply line a baking tray with parchment paper, spread the nuts in the tray, and bake them in the oven until they are lightly roasted.
In doing this, preheat the oven first. And then put the nuts in. The time taken to roast these nuts would depend on the size of the nuts. If they are chopped into small pieces, you would typically need just 3 or 4 minutes. But if they are chopped into larger pieces, you would need more time in the oven. The best way to do this is to try with just 2 or 3 minutes first. And then check every other minute until the nuts begin to turn golden brown.
Again, once done, remove the tray from the oven and transfer the nuts to a wide plate to allow them to cool down. Leaving the nuts in the oven or even in the tray after roasting could result in the nuts being over-roasted from the residual heat in the oven or the tray.
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📖Recipe
Strawberry Oat Bars with Nutty Crumble Topping
For best results, use the metrics measurements. US customary measurements have not been tested and are only meant for guide.
Ingredients
- 65 g instant oatmeal
- 90 g plain flour
- 15 g ground almond
- 65 g brown sugar
- 115 g butter
- 150 g strawberry filling
- 50 g almond nibs roasted
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 160°Celsius. Grease and line an 8 inches by 4 inches loaf pan with parchment paper.
- Dry roast the almond nibs over low heat or in the oven until they are lightly browned. Leave aside to cool.
- Add flour, brown sugar, oats, salt and almond flour into a bowl and mix with a whisk.
- Add butter and beat until the butter is well incorporated into the dry ingredients. The dough should come together into a ball.
- Remove about ½ cup of the crust dough aside and press the remaining into the prepared loaf tin. Make sure the sides are slightly higher than the center.
- Next, add the strawberry filling onto the crust evenly making sure it does not overflow on the sides.
- To prepare the crumb topping, dry roast the almond nibs and add them to the ½ cup crust saved earlier and whisk for a few seconds until the mixture turns crumbly.
- Sprinkle the crumble evenly all over the strawberry oats bar.
- Bake for about 25 minutes at 160°Celsius. Remove the bar from the oven and let it cool in the tin for about 2 to 3 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Cut the bar into smaller squares or bars as desired and serve.
Notes
- Roasting the almond nibs will ensure they are nice and crunchy after baking the oat bars. If you do not roast the nuts, they will not be as crunchy after the baking as they should.
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