In search of healthier oatmeal jam bar recipe.
I have found a few, but wanting to use what I have, and so I am prepping jam from dried apricots, making a bit of applesauce from random apples, defrosting individually wrapped egg whites and comparing wheat germ and oat germ…I think.
Does anyone know a resource for healthier baking subs, or just a great healthier jam bar recipe? I’m going to ask in “what are you baking” too.
I think you need to define what “healthier” means to you, at least as far as this project is concerned. Less fat? Less sugar? Less carbs? Fewer calories? More fiber? More protein? Something else I’m missing? All of the above..?
I agree with Adam, about defining your health goal.
A lot of the heart healthy baked goods recipes in my heart health cookbooks cut back on the butter and sugar and add things like applesauce.
Increasing the butter, would temper the oatmeal jam bar’s sugar spike, so the heart healthier jam bars with less butter would be less healthy for ppl trying to watch their sugar (pre-diabetics and diabetics)
Butter also helps trigger satiety, so it’s likely a smaller bar with more butter would be more satisfying than a lower fat bar.
I don’t like the healthy treats with hidden beans in them , so I would not recommend that.
Adding fibre, by adding chopped figs, dates, dried apricots, etc doesn’t really mess up the oatmeal jam squares as much as fiddling with the butter: sugar ratios.
What have you tried here? I’ve been considering making a white beans chocolate chip cookie recipe that a YouTuber I watch on occasion swears by. Which sounds absolutely atrocious, but I kind of trust this guy, so I might take a leap of faith. (The video has thousands of comments, and as far as I can tell having spent too much time scrolling through them, not a single one of his legion of fans have actually made the thing. But the video itself and the recipe both look “amazing.” Sigh.)
A former friend was always making black bean brownies, various cakes with white beans added, until she went Keto. She would bring these bean things any time we went out, and insist we try whatever she made.
She also was not the most talented baker.
I have made chocolate zucchini cake, a zucchini crisp, and a beet cake in the past. I’m not sure these baked goods are any healthier than a regular chocolate cake, apple crisp. They’re ways to use up bumper crops of homegrown vegetables or CSA vegetables in the summer.
I would say usually, apart from zucchini nut bread or muffins, where the sweet is built around the vegeyable, it’s probably usually better to just make regular chocolate cake and whatknot.
Of course! 
I was thinking lower carbs when I started what was to be my next batch of oat related baking, but I am also curious about many of the things I have come across ( for example apple sauce, egg whites, oat bran, coconut sugar) and what they bring to a “healthier” party.
I’m seeing same question on the baking thread, and I am second guessing posting on both! 
Beet cake sounds like something that could be really good. And I do like zucchini bread, in moderation. The crisp sounds … significantly less good 
I would make a decadent version of the crust mixture and a skinny lower carb coconut oil etc version, same type of jam inside.
Make both, and do a taste testing.
Perfect! Thank you!
I am going to make this Stella Parks’ recipe. Maybe not super healthy.
That’s the one I have been making! I love that one when stone fruit is in season.
Other than the brown sugar and the butter I’d consider that a pretty healthy dessert as-is, as far as desserts go. You could perhaps replace the butter with avocado oil or some other healthier fat, and replace the AP flour with white whole wheat for a bit more fiber. The sugar is really the tough bit here. I personally won’t touch any artificial sweetener so no comment, but I’m pretty sure there are products based on stevia, monk fruit, or whatever… Of course you’d also want to forego a scoop of ice cream on top of the result 
Any thoughts about using oat flour in this recipe? Part of what has me in a tizzy is these triple oat cookies. One of the oats is oat flour and I am intrigued by its effect on texture.
ETA I was going to sub some, but not all of the flour.
Seems to me like it would fit the goals of the flour in this recipe, as a binder. There’s no real “rise” happening here, aside from whatever that small dose of baking soda gives you, and not a lot of chance for gluten to form anyway, so the choice of flour should be fairly arbitrary. Of course if you’re trying to get rid of carbs it doesn’t help all that much, but the additional fiber is a huge bonus in my book…
have you ever made cornmeal jam bars?.
could add some quinoa, I suppose! Or chia- in raspberry chia jam bars!
Thank you!
I have not, but I am looking at the recipe. I don’t see chia in my future, but I’m curious about it’s appeal.
tons of fibre without having a bran texture
Chia seed pudding is awesome, and so easy to make.
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