Apple cranberry oatmeal bars

As I mentioned in the last post, we are in the midst of moving. We closed on our house in mid-July and were fortunate enough to sell our house in 2 days! We have to be fully out of our old house by mid-August, so we have about 3 weeks to move. Last weekend, we hired some movers to transport all of our big bulky items over to the new house. We've been slowly moving all the smaller items ourselves and have been taking multiple carloads a day. Thankfully, we are only half a mile down the road from our old place, so at least it is not a far drive.

As luck would have it, I keep forgetting to pack my baking pans. I have all my spices, flours and utensils, but the baking pans keep getting forgotten. The one pan I did have was my 9x12 nonstick one, so I needed to bake something that would fit into this size. I didn't want to bake brownies or blondies, so I flipped through some of my cookbooks. I came across this apple cranberry oatmeal bar in my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook that my husband's aunt gave me one Christmas. The filling is very flexible and forgiving. I chose to use apple cranberry because that is what I had on hand. You can also use other fruits like apricots, peaches and blueberries.

These bars were easy to put together, but I didn't like how easily they fell apart. I would recommend baking them for longer or baking it in a taller pan. They tasted good and reminded me of a cool autumn day. That was a very welcomed image since it was about 100 degrees when we moved. I'm sweating now just thinking about it!

Off to unpack some more!

Ingredients

• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats
• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup applesauce
• 2/3 cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• dash cloves (I did not use)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium bowl, combine flour, oats, brown sugar and baking soda. Using a pastry blender, cut in butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Reserve 1/2 cup of the crumb mixture.

Make the apple cranberry filling: Combine the applesauce, dried cranberries, cinnamon and cloves together and mix well.

Press remaining crumb mixture into bottom of an ungreased 9x9x2 inch or 11x7x1.5 inch baking pan (I used a 9x12 because that is all I had). Spread with apple cranberry filling.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes (I baked for about 20-25 but wish I had baked for longer) or until the top is golden. Cool on a wire rack. Cut into bars.

Yield: I got about 24 bars, using a 9x12 baking pan.

Source: Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook, page 205