streusel bars Archives - I am a Honey Bee

I made these Fresh Berry White Chocolate Streusel Bars for Memorial Day weekend. We munched on these while we watched the Coke 600 NASCAR race. It made the race even better. How can you not love a sweet treat and hot guys!?! ha 🙂

Well, these were a fantastic pick for this month’s Secret Recipe Club. Huge hit. It made the house smell great while baking so that we agonized waiting the hour for them to cool before cutting. I’m just so glad that this month I had Avril’s blog Baking and Creating with Avril and we picked these bars.

The bars are super simple to make and are bursting with fresh berry flavor. I used strawberries and blueberries but feel free to add some raspberries in there as well. We loved that so much at we felt that the white chocolate is not even needed. It’s great but if you don’t have it on hand (I don’t normally), don’t stress out. These will kick butt with the buttery crust, fresh fruit and crumbly topping.

I found it a bit easier to gently cut the bars when they were still warm so that it made cutting through them when they cooled easier. Like scoring something before you cut it- that’s my 7 yrs of maki. As well, made for thing a bit easier when cutting through the chocolate so it wouldn’t make a mess breaking the drizzle up.

I swear you won’t be able to eat just one of these. So fantastic!

Fresh Berry White Chocolate Streusel Bars

Makes 24 bars

Ingredients

2 cups oats
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup COLD butter, cut into small pieces
8 ounces strawberry jam
1 tsp lemon zest
2 cups fresh berries (chop or slice strawberries if you use them)
3 ounces white chocolate chips

Process

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Set aside at 15×10 jellyroll pan (rimmed baking sheet.
In a large bowl whisk together oats, flour, both sugars, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add in COLD butter that has been cut into small pieces. Combine the butter into the dry ingredients either with your hands or a pastry cutter until butter is well incorporated as little crumbles. Remove 1 cup of the mixture, set aside. Evenly press the remaining mixture into a jellyroll pan.
Bake for 12-13 minutes or until it is firm to the touch, but not browned.
Warm the jam in microwave for 30 seconds. Add in lemon zest to combine. Spread the warm jam over the crust.
Evenly sprinkle the berries over the jam layer and then sprinkle the reserved crumb mixture.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until topping is a light brown. Remove from oven and let cool 1 hour before cutting. Once cut pour the melted chocolate over the bars in the pan.

Slightly Adapted from: Baking and Creative with Avril

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