Raspberry-Coconut Oatmeal Bars

[Updated Recipe] Dessert bars, or simply “bars” and “squares,” are an American creation.  Bars are sweet snacks with a cake or a cookie-like texture, made in one pan, and enjoyed any time of the day.  Staples of neighborhood bake sales, class parties, and picnics, bars are great any time of the year.

I make my recipe for raspberry-coconut bars using seedless raspberry jam, but one could easily substitute it with another flavor of jam.  Apricot, strawberry, or blackberry jam would all be fantastic. Like cookies, bars have countless variations–seven-layer bars, lemon squares, cheesecake bites, chocolate peanut butter bars. They sometimes push culinary boundaries (if you ask me), like those that are piled high with fruit loops or sprinkled with chia seeds.

I like bars, because they fall in the cookie family, and I’ve yet to meet a cookie I didn’t like.  This recipe for my raspberry-coconut bars is a favorite of mine that I make often. It incorporates some of my favorite ingredients: oatmeal, coconut, and raspberry. And some of my family even justify these as a great “breakfast bar“, they do have oatmeal in them so maybe that works after all.

This recipe recently got an update. In the original one, I used organic quick oats (oats that are pre-cooked, dried, and then rolled and pressed slightly thinner than rolled oats) but I have switched over to using traditional whole oats instead for a heartier oat-bar texture.