Apple Oat Bars are the perfect way to use up any abundance of apples this time of year. My parents had an orchard on their farm, so every fall, my late mother did a lot of baking.
Making apple cider was a family event every year; and Mom always filled the freezer with lots of apple pies and apple cakes. . . not to mention the crates of apples my parents stored under bales of straw in the old stone milk house built into the side of the barn hill. (My great-great grandfather Henry Taylor homesteaded the farm in 1854. After building a temporary log house, the barn was the first permanent structure. It was built from the trees felled from the land surrounding it. The picture below was taken in early 1900. My late father, an avid gardener, stored crates of apples, carrots, beets, and cabbages in the old milk house where the temperatures remained consistent year-round.)
The former
Taylor Homestead barn.
Back to the apple oat bars . . . these bars taste just like my mom’s apple cake! However, she used white and brown sugar, salt, white flour, and processed seed oils in her recipe—the perfect recipe for the future development of diabetes and its nasty complications.
Apple Oat Bars
Makes 3—9x9 pans
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Mix together in a large dishpan:
12 cups old fashioned oats
8 chopped apples
2 cups chopped walnuts
2 cups raisins
2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon nutmeg
Process in a high-speed blender until creamy:
6 apples
3-4 ripe bananas
1 (8-ounce bag) pitted dates or prunes
4 tablespoon ground flax seeds soaked in ½ c water until “goopy” (egg replacement) I start soaking them the night before, but it doesn’t require that long.
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Add the fruit paste. With clean hands, massage all ingredients together until thoroughly saturated. Press into the three pans. Bake for 35 min. Cool on racks before cutting into bars--or serve straight from the pan. This also makes an excellent breakfast meal in the fall!
My late father on his 90th birthday in the orchard he planted many years ago. Photo credit: www.RuthYaro.com
Emily Boller, wife, mother, artist, and author is on a mission to create expressive works of art in her lifetime; and to bring awareness to the potentially harmful traps of diet-wellness culture.
In her free time, she loves to chase sunrises, grow flowers and vegetables, and can homemade soups.