Raspberry Jam Bars

Hi - Summer here again. Today I officially got started with the baking. First up - Raspberry Jam Bars. The prep time listed on here is 15 minutes and I would agree with that. These are quite quick to make and even with clean-up, I was done in about 20 minutes (this does not include the baking time).

I decided to jot some quick notes as I was going along, so I would remember when I posted. First thing worth noting is this recipe calls for lining an 8 inch pan with foil. I have never lined a pan with foil before. Typically I like the old greasing method or grease and flour method. But I tried the foil thing.

As the title of the recipe implies, these are a bar cookie. The crust is quite crumbly. The instructions say to cream the butter and sugar in the mixer and then stir in the rest of the ingredients by hand. Well, I tried using the stir setting on my Kitchen Aid mixer, but ended up stirring with a flexible spatula. It was actually a lot easier to mix the dough this way. And you don't really get dough - it's like the crisp part of an apple crisp.

When spreading the raspberry jam in the pan, I found that using my little off-set spatula did the job quite nicely. I did try with a regular knife at first, but with the smaller size of the pan, the off-set spatula is a better design for spreading.

Bars before baking.

The baking time stated 35-40 minutes, and mine were done in 35 minutes. After letting them cool, I see now why the foil-lining is so great. They came out with ease. One suggestion in the recipe is to use a small round cookie cutter to make little tartlets. I didn't have one, so I tried using a small heart-shaped one. It wasn't worth the effort.


They are very tasty and I can see making these again. Slight modifications that I made to the recipe - light brown sugar instead of dark brown sugar; salted butter instead of unsalted. There you have it - one recipe down and many more to go!

***One little disclaimer - sorry about the bad lighting in the pictures. I would like to use natural light, but it's dark and I wanted to post tonight!