Blueberry Oat Crumble Bars

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! It’s so nice to have Valentine’s Day fall on a Friday isn’t it? I had great intentions to cook a nice gourmet meal for my husband but then I realized we had to hit the gym tonight as part of our marathon training plan. Plus, it is interval training tonight. Perhaps it is an excuse for me not to cook a lavish meal. So, the plan is to go to the gym and grab a take away meal after. I like it.

A few days back I found that I had a lot of blueberries to use up. I got a bit carried away when Aldi sold blueberries for 69p a punnet. I was asking my followers on Facebook what I should use the blueberries for. One of the responses I got was to make a blueberry pie. That coupled with seeing skinny blueberry crumble bars on another site inspired me to come up with my own version. These bars may not be a skinny version however it is still less fattening than a pie and tastes much better than dry Weetabix.

Anyway, back to these bars, they are so easy to make. I made them using my go-to crumble recipe. This crumble is easy and quick to make in a food processor and it’s so versatile. Other than using it for these blueberry oat crumble bars, you can use it on top of apple crumble or on top of some mince pies at Christmas. It has a lot of almonds blended in and really creates a heavenly nutty aroma. I use a combination of ground almonds and almond flakes. The almond flakes are really just so I get a different texture from the ground almonds. See, this is a bonus post here – a recipe for crumble as well as for blueberry oat crumble bars!

So, all you have to do for these bars is make the crumble, then pour half the crumble into a square baking tin/oven proof casserole. Pour in the blueberries. Top off with the remaining crumble. Bake.

The bars are baked for 45 minutes which is enough time to cook down the blueberries. Hence, you do not really need to boil them down beforehand. How’s that for a short cut. Do note that because the blueberries are not boiled down with any sugar, and are in fact added in “raw” there is less sweetness in these bars. Hence, you can increase the sugar in the crumble if you prefer.

I kept these bars for 5 days in an air-tight container and they still tasted as good on the fifth day. I love the nutty smell every time I opened the container. I must stress that you must allow the bars to cool completely before you cut them to get neat bars instead of a crumbly mess. Learn from my experience. I did dig in and got a delicious mess. You can refrigerate the bars before cutting as that will make it even easier to cut the bars neatly.

To wrap up, tell me if you celebrate Valentine’s Day or is it a non-event for you? Whatever it may be, I hope you have a great weekend. I am going to be watching a lot of the Winter Olympics. I wished I had been a speed skater. Until next time, bye!

Recipe for Blueberry Oat Crumble Bars

Prep Time: 15 minutes / Baking Time 45-50 minutes

You will need a square/rectangle baking tin. I used a 9” square baking tin.

Ingredients

80gm Plain Flour

80gm Rolled Oats

80gm Butter (cold and cubed)

80gm Ground Almonds

40gm Almond Flakes

40gm Brown Sugar

½ tsp Cinnamon

200gm Blueberries

Method

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C and lightly grease your baking tin.

2. Pour plain flour, rolled oats, cold cubed butter, ground almond, almond flakes, brown

sugar and cinnamon into the food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.

3. Pour half the crumble mixture into the bottom of your baking tin and press it down firmly. That is your foundation. Pour the blueberries on top. Next, finish off by pouring the remaining crumble mixture on top of the blueberries. Press the crumble mixture down.

4. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the top of your crumble has browned slightly. Leave to cool for at least 30-40 minutes before cutting.