Healthy Fruit & Oatmeal Breakfast Bars
If you’re like me these days, you’re scouring every last inch of your schedule in the hopes of finding more time! Sometimes that means losing sleep, sometimes that means eating breakfast bars for a meal. With these healthy fruit and oatmeal breakfast bars, you can have some baking fun on the weekend that will also save you time during the week!
This week we’re going to concentrate on breakfast. This is partly because I’ve been feeling the effects of skipping breakfast lately, partly because I was inspired by Chef John from Foodwishes.com, and partly because, as Rachel pointed out in the recipe for Mini Strawberry Cheesecake Cups, strawberries are in season right now! But don’t feel like you’re strapped onto the strawberry train–we’ll talk about ways to customize this recipe and add some variety!
How to Bake with Sugar Substitutes…
This often gets overlooked when the discussion turns to health food. “Just use Splenda!” is something I hear from a lot of people, but it’s not as simple as that. Splenda is splendid in coffee, but it sometimes acts weird when it comes to baking. Either it doesn’t cream the butter properly, it melts funny, or it just tastes weird!
I’ve also heard people talking about using alternatives like agave nectar, honey, molasses, etc. But these also affect the flavor and they’re not even cutting the calories! Now I’m no nutritionist, but I do know my way around a baked good! My solution was to use a 50/50 blend of splenda and sugar. It gave the texture I wanted and didn’t effect the flavor to an unacceptable degree.
Fruit – The Natural Sugar Alternative…
So if some of your sweetener might taste weird, how do you make this bar taste good? My solution was fruit! I know it might sound strange to consider fruit a sugar substitute, but it’s sweet and it’s tasty, and it’s generally healthier than a spoonful of sugar.
I went with a blend of strawberries and bananas because that’s what I had in my pantry, but whatever fruit you have on hand will work! Is it winter and all you can find are apples? Cube them up and put them in! Found an old package of raisins in the pantry? Rehydrate them in a little water and they’re good to go! Have some fun with this recipe–if you’re busy enough to be making these healthy oatmeal breakfast bars, you need to squeeze all the fun you can out of your baking!
Alternative Flour Options for Healthy Oatmeal Breakfast Bars…
The fruit isn’t the only place you can customize this recipe. I used AP Flour, but you can use your food processor to make oat flour and use that to punch up the nutritional content! You can use buckwheat flour to add more fiber! You can blend AP and cake flour to make the bars softer! Or bread flour if you want to bring them on a hike and need them more durable!
Seriously, being a baker isn’t far off from being a scientist. Mess around with these healthy fruit and oatmeal breakfast bars, and make them your own. It doesn’t take much time and will save you money. Have some fun with this!
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Strawberry Banana Breakfast Bars
Ingredients
- 10 oz Strawberries
- 6 oz Bananas
- juice from 1/2 lemon
- 2 tbsp 50/50 splenda blend (white)
- 2 tsp corn starch
- 6 oz oats
- 5 oz AP Flour
- 3.5 oz 50/50 splenda blend (brown)
- 1/2 t salt
- 1/4 t all spice
- 1/4 t cinnamon
- 4 oz Melted Butter
- 1 egg
Instructions
- Line a 9×9 pan with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350
- Toss Strawberries and bananas with the juice of 1/2 of a lemon, the white sugar blend, and corn starch.
- Combine rest of ingredients (oats, flour, brown sugar blend, salt, spices, butter and egg) until it forms a sort of loose dough/paste. Press about 1/3 of it into the bottom of your pan.
- Spread an even layer of fruit over the dough with a slotted spoon (reserve liquid). Reserve remaining fruit.
- Lightly press about half of your remaining dough into the cracks and crevices around the fruit. Use a light touch–you don't want to crush your fruit!
- Cover that layer with whatever fruit remains, and then lightly press the remaining dough around the fruit. Drizzle your reserved liquid evenly over the top.
- Bake at 350 for 40-55 minutes. The dough will set pretty quickly but the fruit will take time to swell and burst from the heat. Look for the fruit bubbling in the cracks and crevices and along the edges of the pan!
- Allow to cool completely and refrigerate for 1 hour. Depan and cut into bars.
- These are safe stored in an airtight container at room temperature for a day or two, but should be refrigerated or frozen past that.
Notes
- Feel free to change up the fruit to what you like or what you have on hand! Just make sure it adds up to 16 oz of total fruit!
Omg this looks so delicious! Like I can’t take my eyes of those pictures. I will be definitely trying this recipe on the weekend to surprise my family in the morning. Thank you so much for sharing!
Thanks so much Natalie! I bet they will be thrilled with your surprise! 🙂