Mom’s Oatmeal Raisin Bars

Why You Need to Make Mom’s Oatmeal Raisin Bars

If you love chewy fruity goodness and oatmeal cookies, this bar cookie is for you!

An easy oatmeal dough, made without eggs, plus simmered dried fruits in a sticky, thick sweet syrup. Hard to resist!

These bars are also very easy to make, plus they are just as tasty whether you add the cinnamon glaze or not.

One thing I really appreciate about this recipe is the dough is divided: 2/3 gets pressed into the bottom of a 9″ x 13″ pan, and the other 1/3 gets a bit extra water mixed in so it clumps together in blobs that are the perfect size for sprinkling over the fruit.

Pick your favorite dried fruit, or stick with the original and go with all raisins. No matter how you make them, raisin bars are hard to beat!

How to Make Them

You may use each ingredient in more than one of the components: the dough, the filling, and the glaze, but this is all you need.

The ingredient list features staples from a well-stocked pantry, so you will almost always have what you need on hand.

For the Oatmeal Dough

• butter: Carries flavor, assists in browning, prevents too much gluten from forming. If you made these without butter, they’d be more like thick crackers than chewy bars
• brown sugar: You can use white, light brown, or dark brown. Or a combo of all three. Provides sweetness, assists in browning, tenderizes the dough and keeps them moist
• salt: Brings all the flavors into focus. Don’t leave it out. I use Morton’s kosher salt in all my baking
• vanilla: Rounds out the flavors and brings some complex, floral notes to the dough
• cinnamon: The main flavoring for the dough. Feel free to use your favorite baking spice mix in place of cinnamon. Apple pie spice, pumpkin pie spice, etc will work as well.
• all-purpose flour: Gives the dough bulk and provides gluten for structure. If you need gluten-free raisin bars, substitute your favorite gluten-free flour blend, preferably a cup-for-cup variety
• baking soda: Adds a little lift and neutralizes the acidity in the brown sugar. If you use all granulated sugar, use 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder instead of 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.
• dry oatmeal: Also adds bulk as well as mellow oat flavor and texture.
• water: Helps the dough hold together.

For the Fruit Filling

• raisins: The recipe calls for 2 cups total. You can make up that 2 cups with all raisins or a mixture of your favorite dried fruits
• brown sugar: I prefer the bolder flavor of dark brown sugar, so that’s what I use in this recipe. Since you’re just making a syrup and plumping the dried fruit, use whatever sugar is your favorite
• water: You can also use a fruit juice like apple or grape. Note you will probably need to reduce the amount of sugar if you use juice instead of water
• salt: Brings the flavors into focus. Please don’t leave it out
• cornstarch: Thickens the mixture into a thick syrup so your dough doesn’t get soggy.
• vanilla extract: Rounds out the flavors. Optional, especially if you don’t have much vanilla in your house

For the Optional Glaze

• powdered sugar: For sweetness and body. Also, using powdered sugar allows the glaze to set up firmly so the bars are not messy to eat
• salt: Brings out the flavor and adds dimension. As always, don’t leave it out
• cinnamon: Brings some warm spice to the glaze
• vanilla: Rounds out the flavor. Not strictly necessary here, but lovely if you have it
• milk: Thins the glaze to drizzling consistency. Use any milk, whether full fat, non-fat, or any plant-based milk

Procedure

1. Mix the dough ingredients.
2. Simmer the fruit filling and allow it to cool for about 15 minutes.
3. Press 2/3 of the dough into a pan-sprayed 9″ x 13″ pan.
4. Spread the fruit filling on in a thin, even layer. The goal is to get a 1-fruit thickness all over the entire surface of the dough, so it will take some patience. See the “more fruit filling” variation if you’d like a bit thicker filling.
5. Add a touch more water to the remaining dough and sprinkle it in little blobs all over the fruit filling.
6. Bake and let cool completely.
7. Whisk up glaze ingredients and drizzle onto the cooled bars.

Visual How-To

The first image shows the dough before adding a Tablespoon of water. Truly, it’s all you need for the base.

You’ll pour 2/3 of your dough into a 9″ x 13″ pan and save out 1/3, mixing in 1 additional Tablespoon of water to that.

The dough is very easy to press evenly into the pan with either your fingers or the bottom of a glass.

The fruit mixture will look cloudy and odd until it comes to a boil.

This is because the cornstarch will make the liquid opaque until it gelatinizes, thickening the fruit mixture.

Note that 2 cups of fruit will yield a thin layer of fruit across the whole crust.

If you want a thicker layer of fruit, please see “variations,” below.

Note in the upper left how I’m pushing the fruit filling towards the sides of the pan. This is because the bottom of the pan is hottest, and the filling will cool more quickly when pushed to the sides.

You can also pour it into a cold metal bowl to assist with more rapid cooling.

In the top right photo, note that you are trying to achieve a 1-piece-of-fruit thickness of filling all across the bottom crust.

Best Way to Slice Raisin Bars

You can cut raisin bars with a plain dinner knife right in your baking pan.

That’s what mom did.

But if you want cleaner slices–raisins are pretty hard to cut in half cleanly!–here’s what I do.

1. After the glaze sets (if you’re glazing them), use a pizza cutter to cut the slab of cookies into 6 to 8 equal pieces. Finish the cuts towards the edges of the pan with a knife.
2. Lift each section out onto a cutting board.
3. Cut each section in 4-6 equal slices. Again, I find a pizza cutter to be the best tool for the job, although if you’re good at making straight cuts. a sharp knife works well too.
4. Depending on how many cuts you make, you can make as many as 48 small raisin bars or 24 larger ones. It’s totally your call.

Equipment You May Need

You can bake these in a 9″ x 13″ pan or in a 9″ x 9″ pan. NOTE I handwash these pans just to be safe. They are fantastic pans.

After baking, let the bars cool in the pan on a cooling rack.

Slice them with a pizza cutter or a pastry wheel. NOTE If you make thicker bars, you’ll want to use a pizza wheel.

Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

Variations

• For thicker bars: No substitutions needed, and no math. Just make these in a 9″ x 9″ square pan. Bake them at 325F rather than 350F for about 40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown all over the fruit makes little bubbling noises.
• For more fruit filling: Bake in a 9″ x 13″ pan but increase all fruit filling ingredients by 1/2, so you’ll need 3 cups of fruit, 1 1/2 cups water, about 1/3 cup water, 1 1/2 Tablespoons cornstarch, about 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.
• Citrus-Scented: Rather than using cinnamon, you can introduce bright citrus flavors by adding the zest of either a lemon or 1/2 orange to both the dough and the fruit filling. If you choose to glaze them, leave out the cinnamon, and use either orange juice or lemon juice (or a combination) rather than milk for the liquid in the glaze.
• Oatmeal (Any) Fruit Bars: You are by no means limited to just using raisins. The photos in the post are of a version I made with 1/2 golden raisins and 1/2 a mixture of dried cranberries and tart cherries. Other dried fruit options to consider: currants, apricots (snipped so the bits are about the size of raisins), figs, dates, blueberries, apples, etc.
• Brown Butter (Any) Fruit Bars: Up the flavor ante by browning and cooling the butter called for in the dough. You will need to add a total of 2 1/2 Tablespoons (7 1/2 teaspoons) water when making the base dough. Add the called-for 1 Tablespoon of additional water to the portion of dough reserved for the topping.

Tips for Success

Make sure your butter is very soft before you make your dough. Pull a stick of butter out of the fridge a good hour or even an hour and a half before baking. If you forget, soften in the microwave on power level 2 10 seconds at a time.

No need to line your baking pan with parchment. A quick spray with pan spray works, and once cut, your bars will lift out cleanly using a small spatula.

Oatmeal Raisin Bar Q & A

Serving Suggestions

Consider cutting these into large squares. Heat them up, and serve them topped with some store-bought or homemade vanilla ice cream. Top them with some butterscotch sauce or white chocolate sauce. Hello!

Serve them as part of a cookie tray for Christmas or any get-together, really.

Pair them with some angel slices, some brown butter chocolate chip cookies, and maybe some chocolate peppermint crinkle cookies.

A Note About Measurements

NOTE: Most of my recipes are written by weight and not volume, even the liquids.

Even though I try to provide you with volume measurements as well, I encourage you to buy a kitchen scale for ease of measuring, accuracy, and consistency.

This is the scale I use, love, and recommend. If you’re unsure, please read my post about how to use a food scale.

Questions

If you have questions about this post or recipe, don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can leave a comment on the post and I will get back to you within about 24 hours.

If your question is more urgent, please shoot me an email, and I will respond within 4 hours, unless I’m asleep.

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You will love these cranberry raisin bars. I promise. Enjoy them, and thank my mom next time you see her.

Take care, thanks for reading, and have a lovely day.