Sour Cherry Oatmeal Bars

Every time we go to Philly to visit Jess, I come back with items from the Metropolitan Bakery that 1) are absolutely delicious, and 2) I want to recreate. You'd think it'd be easy to find the recipes to recreate these items since they have a cookbook published, but alas the bar cookie we were swept away by this time is not in the book.

Jess and I went foraging in the day-old bin, and the two of us were like giddy little children in a candy store as we rifled through the unusually large selection of discounted items that early Saturday morning. Croissants! Frosted carrot cake! Muffins of all sorts! Loaves of bread! And fatefully, raspberry crumb bars.

We didn't get a chance to eat the raspberry crumb bar whilst in Philly, but upon returning home and finding it packed into our food bag by a sneaky Jess, Michael and I shared the bar and liked it more and more with each passing bite. The shortbread crust was sturdy and crunchy on the base, the jam deep-flavored and delightfully sticky, and the paler crumbs on top were well-articulated yet fragile. 

After a day or two daydreaming about it, I started scouring the Interwebs for recipes. There are plenty of recipes for raspberry crumb bars; the tricky part is that we felt like there was a slight oat-like quality to the taste, but most oatmeal fruit bars seem soft and crumbly rather than crunchy. So I found one that seemed to come out sturdy based on user reviews and gave it a shot. I didn't have raspberry jam, so sour cherry jam stood in instead (spectacularly, I might add).

They did come out a bit softer and crumblier than what we're aiming for, but they are quite delicious in their own right. Wholesome, hearty, good balance of crust and fruit, and just quite delicious. I already have my next recipe pegged out to try, one that doesn't involve oats so hopefully we can get more of a crunch, so here's hoping! Meanwhile, we'll enjoy these yummy bars as part of our packed weekday lunches.

You can find the recipe here. I used a food processor to mix the crust dough together. The only other thing I did differently was to bake the bottom crust for 10 minutes before adding the jam layer. I did NOT cool the pre-baked crust before adding the jam and crumb topping, and I baked it for another 25-30 min after adding the top layer.