Oats and all fruit sweetened spread – what a winning combination! Bake them up into some yummy whole food plant based bars and you have a delicious dessert or a little sweet treat to enjoy with some tea – hot or iced depending on the day. I call these yummy bars Jammies! I posted a photo of these on Instagram and Facebook the other day and the requests for the recipe came pouring in! Here is the story behind this recipe. When we were at Chef AJ’s for a week of training becoming Certified Ultimate Weight Loss Educator’s she made these for us a couple times. They are fabulous! Everyone was drooling over them. Chef AJ got the idea from a Forks Over Knives recipe but she changed it up to her liking. I wanted to make some bars the other day and decided to use one of my Banana Oat Muffin Mixes that I batch prep ahead of time. It worked so well – these are fabulous! Our granddaughter Sweet Pea went crazy for these. Toddler approved – which always makes me happy.
Now if I need a last minute dessert to take some place or if unexpected guests show up I can make these in just minutes using my batch prepped mixes. I love that. Eating whole food plant based doesn’t have to be complicated – it just requires a little planning.
I even had good luck freezing these. They thaw out pretty quickly or you can microwave them on defrost to help the process along.
You will need an all fruit spread for the topping on the bars. Trader Joe’s has a couple – we prefer the Super Fruit over the Strawberry. The Super Fruit has a lot more flavor but that is just personal preference. The St Dalfour fruit spread came from Whole Foods. Apricot is also really good too. I have seen different brands in regular grocery stores as well. Just be sure to get one that is sweetened with juice – no added sugar. You can make your own Chia Berry Jam Recipe – that would work too.
For my Banana Oat Muffin Mixes I use ground quinoa – I buy the Costco Kirkland brand Quinoa that is already rinsed and I grind it in the blender into a powder. You can watch me make the mix in the Quinoa Banana Oat Muffin Video. I have since discoverd Quinoa Flakes which are just rolled and flatened quinoa – like how they make rolled oats. It eliminates one step and is very convienent and less processed than grinding the quinoa into a powder. I buy this product at Whole Foods in the cereal aisle by the oats. If you don’t have either of these products you can use ground millet or add 1/2 cup more rolled oats to the batter. I like using the quinoa to boost the nutritional profile especially when I am making things for Sweet Pea – our granddaughter.
The Bob’s Red Mill Quick Cooking Steel Cut Oats are used in this recipe. If you have regular Steel Cut Oats you can just pop those in the food processor and cut them a little smaller – that is what they have done to make the Quick Cooking Steel Cut Oats. People always ask me if this recipe can be made with all rolled oats and I honestly don’t know because I have never tried it. I like using these products to try and make things a bit healthier.
I make these muffin mixes up when I batch prep – since I have the dry ingredients out why not make extra and have them ready to use! Now I can make muffins or fruit bars or both with this one mix. I love that! I freeze bananas in large gallon size ziplock containers so I can always make these muffins or bars.
From one batch of Banana Oat Mix you can make a 9 inch pan of Fruit Bars and 6 muffins or you can make 2 – 9 inch pans of Fruit bars. If you wanted to make the fruit bars in the muffin pans I suggest using 1/4 cup batter per muffin cup and then top with the jam. You will get 24 individual little treats that way. I have made them as full muffins using 1/2 c batter per muffin and then topping them with jam but we felt like they were too big and it was too filling! Plus Sweet Pea was eating the top 1/3 of the muffin with the jam and leaving the rest.
You can cut the 9 inch pan of bars into 16 servings. The trick to using silicone bakeware is to wait until everything has completely cooled before trying to remove it from the pan. Use a plastic knife to cut the bars in the silicone pan and be very careful so you don’t cut the pan.
With the fruit spread on top these are sweet enough to feed to everyone – even your non healthy eating friends and family will enjoy these Fruit Bars. They look so appealing! Be sure to subscribe to the blog to get 2 free exclusive recipes just for subsribers!
I like to serve them with a little fresh fruit – berries are simply perfect. If you want to see the video where I make the muffin batter and talk about the ingredients that are used in this bar recipe click here.
Substitutions:
You can use all rolled oats instead of the various grains I use in the recipe. It would be a total of 5 cups of rolled oats and grinding 1/2 cup of oats into a flour in your blender or food processor.
If you don’t want to use banana you can try using mashed or pureed mango or very sweet oven roasted Japanese Sweet Potato or Hannah Yams mashed. You might have to use more applesauce to make it more moist. Bananas would be my first choice because of the moisture and sweetness.
Oat & Jam Bars – Jammie’s!
Ingredients
- 20 ounces mashed overripe banana – about 2 1/3 cups of mashed banana frozen bananas thawed out is fine
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/2 cup Quinoa Flakes quinoa flour, ground millet, ground prewashed quiona or add 1/2 cup more rolled oats
- 2 cups Quick Cooking Steel Cut Oats* see note below recipe
- 2 1/2 cups Old Fashioned rolled Oats – use certified gluten free oats to make these gluten free
- 1/4 cup ground golden flaxseed meal
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon baking powder -optional
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg – freshly ground is best – see video
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 – 2 Jars Fruit Spread – fruit juice sweetened – no added sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl mash the bananas using a potato masher or a large fork. Mix in the applesauce. Add the cinnamon, baking powder, cardamom, nutmeg and vanilla powder or vanilla extract. Stir until well incorporated. Add the quinoa flakes, quick cooking steel cut oats, old fashioned oats and ground flaxseed meal. Stir until well combined.
- This batter can make 2 – 9 inch square silicone pans of fruit bars or 1 – 9 inch silicone pan of fruit bars and 6 muffins. If making 2 pans of fruit bars you will need 2 jars of fruit spread.
- If making a 9 inch silicone pan use 3 cups of the batter – spread it out evenly and top with 1 jar of fruit spread – using a spatula to spread it covering the top evenly.
- You will have 3 cups of batter left and can make another pan of bars or 6 muffins. Using 1/2 cup of batter per muffin fill the muffin pan.
- The bars and muffins take 30 minutes in my Breville Smart Oven Air on the bake function.
- Let cool completely before trying to remove from silicone pans. Using a plastic knife cut the bars into 16 servings. Both the bars and the muffins may be frozen for future use.
Notes
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I love reading all of your posts and have gotten so many good ideas and good recipes from them. I have 2 questions for you:
1. How small do you chop the ingredients in your chopped salads?
2.. How and where do you store all of your wonderful silicone bakeware and your glass and plastic storage pieces? I have a large kitchen, but have run out of room! I would love to get some of the pieces that you recommend.
Thanks!
Hi! Thank you for the kind comments. Have you watched my chopped salad video or looked at my salad photos on Instagram? I am not sure how to tell you how small I chop my salads – I think you need to see a photo of them. Here is a link to my blog post and video. http://nutmegnotebook.com/posts/how-to-make-chopped-salads/
I just store the silicone bakeware and plastic and glass containers in my kitchen cupboards. I moved things that don’t get used as often out of the way to make room for the things I actually use all the time. Maybe pack up some things that you don’t use anymore or don’t use as often and make room for the new things! I gave a bunch of stuff away that we no longer use.
Happy Cooking,
Tami
Hello Tami,
Thank you for all your inspiring posts. These Jammies look so good. Is there something I can use instead of the banana?
I am not sure what you could use in place of banana – that is where the sweetness and moisture comes from.
Perhaps sweet potato instead if banana?
Dear Tammy- I love your site and ideas, also variations and such.
Would you consider formatting your posts so that the recipes are more easily printed?
Hi Laura,
We are looking into getting a new recipe print function – it will be a lot of work to hand type all the recipes over and enter them into a new program so it won’t be something that happens overnight. I have been very frustrated with our print function for quite some time myself. I feel your pain! Thank you so much for asking and for your kind comments about the blog. We hope to get this changed in the very near future.
Happy Cooking!
Tami
Wow! I’m so glad I found you! You have great ideas and this recipe is a wonderful replacement for my Applesauce Oat Muffins recipe that uses oil. Thank you!
You are so welcome! Happy Cooking!
The jam bars are great! What’s the best way to store them, if not freezing them?
I am so glad you like them. I store them in the fridge – they don’t have any preservatives and would get moldy at room temperature. Enjoy!
I really don’t care for bananas what else can I use in place of them
I don’t know because they add the sweetness – maybe mango? You will need to find something as sweet and something with the same texture.
Tami, do you bake jam/oatmeal bar with the preserves/jam on? or do you wait until they are out of the oven and then add the preserves/jam?
Hi Kelly,
The jam is put on the bars before you bake them. It works beautifully this way!
Happy Cooking,
Tami
Hi. If I put these in a regular oven, how long do I cook them for and what temperature? Thank you.
I used the bake setting on the Breville so the temperature and time would be the same.
Happy baking,
Tami