Peanut Butter Jelly Bars
These peanut butter and jelly bars are a great kids’ snack to keep around! Sweet enough to interest them, but not full of refined sugar. Whole grain oatmeal, dried fruit, peanut butter — these are wholesome as hell, y’all! Chef Baby likes these for breakfast sometimes, or for a snack to take to the park. Of course you can use any nut butter in place of peanut butter in case of allergies.
For the sweetest PBJ bars, use raisins and/or apricots or prunes. Less sweet bars, use all or part dried cherries or figs. I use a “spreadable fruit” type of jam that’s made with just fruit but any kind you have would work.
Store these in a container at room temperature for a week. They get a little dry in the fridge.
Peanut Butter Jelly Bars recipe
Oatmeal Fruit Bars
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 16 1x
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 1/4 cups old fashioned rolled oats, divided
- 1 cup dried fruit (raisins, figs, dates, etc)
- 4 tablespoons melted butter or coconut oil, divided
- 3 tablespoons peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons all-fruit jam
- 2 tablespoons chopped roasted peanuts
Instructions
- Set oven to 350 and line an 8×8″ pan with parchment paper, leaving edges hanging over.
- Cover dried fruit with boiling water and let sit 5 minutes.
- Put 1 3/4 cup oats in a food processor and pulse a couple of times to chop. Transfer to a bowl.
- Add drained soaked fruit, 2 tablespoons butter, peanut butter and vanilla to the processor and pulse until combined well. Add to oats and mix. Add 2-4 tablespoons of the soaking liquid as needed to make a stiff dough.
- Press the mixture firmly into the bottom of the baking dish.
- Spread jam casually over that.
- Mix remaining butter with 1/2 cup remaining oats and the peanuts. Sprinkle over the jam and press in.
- Bake 15-20 minutes until lightly browned at the edges.
- Cool in pan, lift out and cut into 2″ squares.
Other Toddler-Friendly Recipes
PBJ Bars Video
2 Comments
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WHEN DID YOUR BABY GET SO BIG
It seems like just last week I saw a video of him and he was so tiny and now he’s like… like not even a baby anymore, he’s a toddler. An adorable one! I need to stop being surprised at this, I don’t have kids myself but I know half a dozen couples who all have children ages 3-8 and I’ve watched them all grow from wee babes to where they are now. It never ceases to amaze me, though.
Merry Christmas to you and your family, Hilah!
Dude! Tell me about it! I was just editing his “Year 2” video and even though I can see plainly that at the beginning of the year he could not even walk, and by the end he is jumping in bounce houses, I still can’t see how we got from one point to the other. It’s like magic!
Merry Christmas to you and your family, Jen! <3