Ingredients
Raspberry Filling
two 12-ounce bags of frozen raspberries (see notes)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (more depending on tartness of your berries)
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
juice of one lemon
Crumble Layer
3 cups rolled oats
3 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar (loosely packed)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups melted butter (I prefer salted)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Place raspberries in a large colander. Run warm water over them for a minute and then let the liquid drain out for about an hour until softened and thoroughly drained (see *notes).
- Mix raspberries with sugar, flour, cornstarch, and lemon juice. Set aside.
- Mix the oats, flour, sugar, baking powder, butter, and salt together into a crumble-like mixture.
- Press two thirds of the crumble into the bottom of a 9×13 pan lined with parchment paper. Bake for 10 minutes.
- Arrange the raspberry layer on top of the baked bottom layer.
- Sprinkle with remaining crumble. Bake for another 25-30 minutes.
- Remove from oven. They will need a little time to set up into “bar” formation, so chill them for a few hours to get them really solid.
*Thawing and draining the raspberries is important for getting the bars to firm up. When thawing the raspberries in the colander, you can gently squeeze them with your hands or press lightly with a spoon to get more liquid out. They will probably still be a little wet and mushy, which is fine. You just don’t want to have tons of excess water seeping out.
*If you’d rather not mess with thawing, you can also use fresh raspberries! However, this is usually more expensive because it requires A LOT of fresh raspberries. And I found my fresh raspberry version to be very, very juicy. Like, kind of hard to eat.
*I highly recommend the chill time! It helps them set up into bars that hold their shape really well. Also because I am weirdly obsessed with cold dessert bars and I think they taste so good.
*Also, nothing against raspberries, but I’m inclined to believe that you could kinda put anything in between two layers of that crumbly cookie-like crust and be very happy with yourself.
*It is recommended using old fashioned rolled oats, not quick oats.
