A dessert everyone will love, with a heart healthy twist! These strawberry rhubarb crumble bars have a delicate buttery crust, a rich, vibrant fruity filling and more crumbly goodness on top plus toasted pecans.
Adapted from Midwest Living
Crumble bars are easy to make, adaptable to whatever you have on hand, and totally adored by everyone! I’ve seen people make them with just jam in the middle, but I prefer a more substantial fruity filling, starting with fresh fruit. This time I decided to also adapt the crumble part to make it more heart healthy.
The result was a decadent dessert that tastes divine, but I felt totally entitled to eat it whenever I felt the urge. For breakfast. Yes, for breakfast, and late-night snacks even. And my guilt-meter (which is usually pegged and on full alarm whenever I eat a sweet) didn’t even budge. So in my humble (well informed and researched) opinion, I think this is safe to eat (in moderation, of course) on a heart-healthy diet.
If you don’t have things like coconut flour or psyllium husk on hand at your house, go ahead and substitute extra whole wheat flour (so you’d have 1 cup whole wheat flour total). The bars might be a little more crumbly, but they’ll still taste good.
Also, I think if you want to cut down on the sugar, you could also use an all fruit strawberry spread instead of jam. Oh and for oat bran, yes, you CAN substitute oatmeal.
My Wednesday night yoga group got together a couple weeks back for a social distancing yoga class … I brought these bars and some spinach balls to share (at a distance). Everyone raved about the bars and that made me SO happy! It had been so long since I cooked something really delicious for someone outside my house.
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Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble Bars
- Prep Time: 20 min
- Cook Time: 55 min
- Total Time: 1 hr 15 min
- Yield: 16 servings 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baked
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
A dessert everyone will love, with a heart healthy twist! These strawberry rhubarb crumble bars have a delicate buttery crust, a rich, vibrant fruity filling and more crumbly goodness on top plus toasted pecans.
Ingredients
For the crumble:
- 1 1/2 cups oat bran (or quick-cooking oats)
- 3/4 cup + 1 Tablespoon whole wheat flour
- 2 Tablespoons coconut flour
- 1 Tablespoon whole psyllium husk
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 3/4 cup cold grass-fed butter (such as Kerrygold)
For the filling:
- 1/2 cup strawberry jam
- 1/2 cup chopped strawberries
- 2 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb (divided)
- 1 Tablespoon chopped candied ginger (optional – add 1 teaspoon extra ginger if omitting)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 Tablespoon tapioca
- 1/2 cup chopped, toasted pecans or walnuts (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Line an 8x8x2 or 9x9x2 inch pan with parchment paper.
- In a medium mixing bowl, stir together all the crumb ingredients except the butter. Add the butter in small chunks, using a pastry cutter, two knives, or your fingers to cut in the butter until the mixture forms into coarse crumbs and there are no large chunks of butter left. Set aside 1 1/2 cups of the crumbs. Press the rest of the oat crumble into the bottom of the prepared pan, coating it evenly as well as you can. Bake for about 20 minutes or until puffed and golden brown.
- In a small saucepan, combine the jam, berries, 1 1/2 cups of the rhubarb, candied ginger, vanilla, ginger and cinnamon. bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, stir in the tapioca and cook until the rhubarb has broken down and the mixture thickens.
- Sprinkle the remaining rhubarb over the cooked crust, then top with the cooked filling, spreading it evenly over the crust. Top with the reserved oat crumble mixture and the nuts and press lightly into the filling.
- Bake for 30 – 35 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the middle looks set. Let cool before lifting the bars out of the pan and cutting.
Notes
For gluten free bars, use brown rice flour in place of the whole wheat flour.
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Keywords: Rhubarb, Strawberry, Oat bran, Heart healthy
