RYE CRUMBLE BARS WITH JAM

I’m currently having a torrid love affair with rye. This is not a sponsored post, but an awesome artisan flour mill opened in my neighborhood a few years ago, and my friend S gifted me some of their products last Christmas, including a bag of whole rye flour. I immediately started Googling recipes, and it turns out I adore the nutty, malty flavor that rye adds to baked goods. So far I’ve made bread, brownies, and chocolate chip cookies (those last two really deserve posts of their own, but were fortunately/unfortunately devoured before I could snap photos, so gosh darn it, I’ll have to make them again), but the real winner has been these bars from Kim Boyce’s much buzzed-about cookbook Good to the Grain, found via Orangette. I always have jars of old jam under my bed that need using up, so the fact that it uses a whole cup and a half of the stuff is a definite bonus.

Let’s face it: This recipe looks incredibly fussy, especially compared to the much simpler jam bars already in my repertoire. The bottom crust and the top crust are made separately with slightly different ingredients, you have to melt and cool butter twice, the bottom crust needs to be frozen for 30 minutes, and the baking time is astonishingly long—nearly two hours. It’s not something you throw together on the spur of the moment. But I made it on a Friday night, and I was surprised by how non-annoying it actually was. The bottom and top crusts share similar ingredients and are a cinch to mix up; you can make the top one while the bottom one freezes. (Or, as Orangette notes, you can even make this in stages over the course of a few days.) After that it’s mostly hands-off, and you can wander away and watch TV or do yoga or something while it bakes. Most importantly, the result is terrific. They definitely put the “crumble” in crumble bars, and I felt that they benefited from some time in the fridge or freezer to keep them from being a sticky disintegrating mess, but the flavor is so, so good, with the toasty, buttery, salty shortbread balancing out the sweet tartness of the jam. I used berry jams the first time, and am planning a second go-round to use up last year’s cranberry preserves. At the rate I’m going, I’ll need to restock on rye flour before I even get to the rest of the recipes I want to try (shortbread, crackers, more bread)!

Shortbread crust:
65 grams (½ cup) dark rye flour
120 grams (1 cup) all-purpose flour
50 grams (1/3 cup) dark brown sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
113 grams (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Crumble:
100 grams (1 cup) rolled oats
32 grams (3 tablespoons) dark brown sugar
52 grams (¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons) dark rye flour
30 grams (¼ cup) all-purpose flour
38 grams (3 tablespoons) sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
85 grams (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
Filling:
350 ml (1½ cups) jam, preserves, or fruit butter (I had closer to 1¼ cups, and it turned out just fine)

1. Set a rack in the middle of the oven, and preheat to 275 degrees. Grease a 9-inch springform pan (I just used a regular cake pan, lining the bottom with parchment, and it was fine) with butter or cooking spray.
2. To make the shortbread crust, combine the flours, sugar, and salt in a large bowl, and whisk to mix well. Add the melted butter and vanilla extract, and stir until thoroughly combined. (If the mixture looks dry, use your hands to squeeze and massaged the dough until it comes together.) Using your hands, press the dough evenly into the bottom of the prepared pan. Put the pan in the freezer for 30 minutes, while you make the crumble. (If you want to do this step ahead of time, wrap the pan in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge or freezer. If it’s in the fridge, just remember to transfer it to the freezer for 30 minutes before baking.)
3. While the shortbread is chilling, put all of the crumble ingredients except the melted butter into the bowl of a food processor, and pulse until the oats are partially ground, about 5 or 10 seconds. Pour the mixture into a bowl. Add the melted butter and stir with your hands, squeezing the mixture to create small crumbly bits. Set aside. (If you want to do this step ahead of time, wrap the bowl in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. Take it out about 30 minutes before using, and if needed, use a fork to break up any giant clumps that have hardened.)
4. Bake the frozen shortbread until pale brown and firm when touched, about 50 to 55 minutes. Remove from the oven, and raise the oven temperature to 350 degrees.
5. To assemble the bars, spread the jam over the shortbread crust, and then top with the crumble, evenly sprinkling it over the surface and squeezing bits of it together to create irregular nubs. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, or until golden brown on top, rotating the pan halfway through for even baking.
6. When the pan is cool enough to handle but still warm, run a sharp knife around the edge of the pan to loosen any jam that may have stuck. Remove the ring if using a springform. Completely (or mostly, anyway) cool the bars in the pan before cutting into wedges.

Serves: About 12 to 16
Time: 3 hours
Leftover potential: Good; I kept mine in the freezer and they lasted for a few weeks.

JAM ALMOND CRUMB BARS

I’m canning less than I used to (I blame this year’s interminable heat, coupled with an increasingly demanding job that leaves me less energy for big kitchen projects), but I still have a perpetual spare-jam supply. Beyond my big holiday distribution, I always hoard a few jars just in case I need them for eating or gifts throughout the year, plus there always seems to be one in every batch that doesn’t seal properly and has to get added to the crowd in the back of the fridge, where it languishes long enough for me to forget when it was made.

When blueberry-picking time rolled around this year and I prepared to make a fresh batch of blueberry-lime jam, I discovered to my chagrin not only a big jar still left over from last year in my stash under the bed, but also two open, partially used jars of indeterminate age floating around in the refrigerator. I have coworkers who will happily polish off any extra jam I happen to have, but I felt odd trying to give away such old stuff, even though I knew it was perfectly safe to eat (with so much sugar and acid, jam rarely goes bad, and if it does it tells you so by getting moldy—but it should still be eaten within a year, and the texture does alter a bit with age).

I needed a recipe that would use up a lot of jam and mitigate any potential staleness, and I quickly found just the thing at Two Peas and Their Pod: easy bars that sandwich the fruit between a simple crust and a crumb topping. I had made similar jam bars once before, but they were loaded with butter and sugar, and even though I wrote about them so enthusiastically here, I never made them again. This new recipe has less sugar and half the fat, uses coconut oil instead of butter, and replaces white flour with whole wheat. It’s still not health food, but it’s less overwhelmingly rich and actually tastes better too; the nuttiness of the wheat and almonds and the slight coconut flavor add a nice counterpoint to the sweet preserves. These bars make an addictive dessert—I brought them to a picnic and they were a big hit—but it wouldn’t be totally crazy to eat them for breakfast or a snack, either. In short, I’m in love, and very sorry to have gotten my jam situation so well under control that I don’t have any left over to make more jam bars. Yes, I could just buy jam at the store, but that seems like cheating… So as soon as the weather cools off (please let it cool off!), I’ve got to get canning, stat. In the meantime, if you’ve got homemade jam from me (or another source) sitting around gathering dust, this is a great way to use it up.

1½ cups white whole wheat flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon (I also added a pinch of cardamom)
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ cup coconut oil, at room temperature
½ cup packed light brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ cup sliced almonds
¾ cup fruit jam

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8-inch square baking dish with cooking spray or coconut oil. Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream coconut oil and sugars on high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla extract. Mix well. With the mixer on low, slowly add in the flour mixture. Mix until combined (the dough will be crumbly). Stir in the sliced almonds.
4. Gently press half the dough into the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Evenly spread jam over dough. Sprinkle remaining dough over the top, making sure you cover the entire thing. Press gently to form the top layer.
5. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Cool completely and cut into squares.

Yields: 12-16 bars
Time: 40 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; freezes well.

JAM COOKIES

If you’re like me and you enjoy making jam more than you like eating it, or if you know someone like me who persists in giving you homemade preserves for Christmas, this recipe is a perfect way to use up that assortment of little half-full jars in the back of your fridge. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that I could just stir jam into plain butter-cookie dough, but I’m so glad Joy the Baker thought of it and created this simple, delicious recipe that can easily be made with ingredients you’re likely to have on hand. I used strawberry jam and the cookies turned out a delicate, barely-there pink, flecked with bits of fruit. The strawberry flavor isn’t strong, maybe because I added almond extract (replacing the ground ginger of the original, since ginger is not my fave and almond most definitely is, and Joy suggested it in the comments so I’m not just flying blind here), but I’m not a devotee of fruity cookies, so I kind of liked that subtlety. You can bet I’ll be trying these in a rainbow of varieties—blueberry, peach, maybe pear or apple butter in the winter… These are certainly basic, everyday cookies (mine verged on downright homely, rescued only by the sparkly sugar coating), but for a non-chocolate dessert, I find them pretty dang exciting.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
⅔ cups sugar, plus ¼–½ cup extra for coating the cookies
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
¼ cup jam

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.

3. Working with a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy and smooth. Add ⅔ cup sugar and beat for 1 minute. Add the egg and beat for 2 minutes more. Add the milk, vanilla, and almond extract, and beat just to combine. Reduce the mixer speed to low, add the jam, and beat for 1 minute more. With the mixer still on low, add the dry ingredients and mix only until they are incorporated.

4. Fill a shallow bowl with sugar. Spoon a rounded teaspoon of the dough into the sugar, toss to coat, and remove to a baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, leaving about an inch between cookies.

5. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point. The cookies will be only just firm, fairly pale, and browned around the edges. Remove the sheets from the oven and allow the cookies to rest for 1 minute, then carefully transfer them to racks to cool to room temperature.

Yields: About 5 dozen small cookies
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: High

OATMEAL-JAM BARS

I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that I like making jam a lot more than I like eating it. (Whereas usually eating the food I make is my favorite part!)

Don’t get me wrong: jam is tasty! But it’s really hard for me to get through more than one jar per year. I don’t eat a lot of toast (even though I adore it; it just doesn’t fill me up for breakfast), and I don’t have a high tolerance for sweet things in the morning anyway. I’ve experimented with eating jam in other ways—for instance, it’s an excellent way to perk up plain yogurt or oatmeal—yet still I’ve got a backlog of perfectly good homemade fruit preserves getting old in my pantry and refrigerator. The main problem is that last winter when I canned a batch of apple butter to give to friends and family for Christmas, at least half a dozen of the jars didn’t seal (I think some of the lids were too old), which meant they weren’t shelf-stable, so I couldn’t mail them or pack them in my suitcase to bring to Minnesota and give away. They were perfectly fine (in fact, the apple butter is darn delicious, if I do say so myself), but they had to be kept in the fridge—and most of them are still there, lurking in the back, six months later. Apple butter is great on toast, but it’s kind of weird stirred into yogurt (there’s a reason you don’t see a lot of commercially made apple yogurt), and now that it’s full summer (100 degrees in Pasadena today!) a bowl of steaming apple-butter oatmeal just doesn’t appeal.

So I was on a mission to find a recipe that would provide a worthy end to my apple butter and any other old jam I might have lying around now or in the future. Because I don’t really want to stop canning jam! It makes me feel all cozy and Little-House-on-the-Prairie-like. But I know that Ma Ingalls would not approve of me wasting perfectly good fresh fruit by canning it, letting it sit on my shelves for a year, and then reluctantly throwing it out for fear of botulism. Appropriately enough, it was The Pioneer Woman who came to my aid with this insanely easy, delicious, versatile recipe for oatmeal-jam bars. Did someone say oatmeal? I love oatmeal!

Don’t mistake these for health food, because they’re totally not; they’re buttery and they’re sweet—in fact, the first time I tasted them they seemed too sweet, and I thought, “Oh, I won’t want to eat very many of these,” and promptly gave a bunch of them away to my coworkers. Then, later in the week, after dinner, I was hankering for a little dessert and I ate a bar and OMG SO GOOD. The flavor was strongly reminiscent of a non-chemical-laden apple NutriGrain bar crossed with an apple crisp or cobbler or crumble; the texture was addictively soft and chewy and slightly sticky. I will definitely be making these again, because I’ve got two more jars of apple butter left in the fridge and maybe even some older jam stashed away in the cupboard. That’s the best thing about this recipe—you can use just about any flavor you want. PW used apricot in the original, I’ve already testified that apple was awesome, and I am just dying to try a berry-flavored version. Folks, I would even—gasp!—buy jam at the store to make this recipe. And if that’s not a glowing recommendation, I don’t know what is.

Oh yeah, and did I mention it’s really, really easy to make? If you don’t believe me, click over to PW’s original writeup, which walks you through step with step-by-step photos.

1½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1½ cups oats
1 cup packed brown sugar
1¾ sticks butter, room temperature, cut into pieces
1 10-to-12-ounce jar of fruit jam or preserves, any flavor

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Using an electric mixer, combine all ingredients except jam in a large bowl until completely blended (it should have about the consistency of crumbly cookie dough).

3. Press half of the mixture into a buttered 8- or 9-inch square baking pan. Spread jam evenly over crust. Sprinkle second half of mixture over the top and pat lightly.

4. Bake 30 to 40 minutes or until light brown. Let cool completely (this may take several hours), then cut into squares.

Yield: Maybe 24 bars? (I cut mine super-small, about half the size of PW’s)
Time: 1 hour