Vegan Jam Bars

A strawberry-fig jam bar posing with some Turk’s caps

The other day Mom gave me some homemade strawberry-fig jam that was way too good to eat on toast or anything boring like that. So I made delicious vegan jam bars with it! I’ve been eating them every morning for breakfast. They have a crumbly, buttery, sugary, oatmeal-y crust, and the recipe called for the whole jar of jam. I keep coming across whole strawberries and nice big chunks of fig. That jam is high quality, I tell you.

I also came across this great old picture last night. I like how ghostly Kris and I look in it. It’s my ninth birthday, and I was nervous about my upcoming party, I remember. (Every year I worried that my party would be a bust.) Anyway, I think this picture is cool. It looks like it was taken so long ago, just before we died . . . of scarlet fever.

Leslie and Kris, 1975

Strawberry-Fig Jam Bars

Ingredients:
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
¾ cup vegan butter
1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
1 jar strawberry-fig jam

Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and butter in a bowl until a crumbly dough is formed. Mix in the oats.

Press about 2/3 of the dough firmly into a greased 9×13-inch pan. Spread the whole jar of jam evenly over the top. Sprinkle the remaining third of the dough over the jam.

Bake about 20 minutes until golden brown. Let cool and cut into bars.

*This recipe isn’t original; it’s just a slight variation on Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s Raspberry Jam Bars in The Joy of Vegan Baking, one of my very favorite cookbooks.