Healthy Raspberry Crumble Bars

So funny story:

I stumbled upon a Whole Foods Raspberry crumble bar earlier this week.

Not the exact Whole Foods bar, but you get the idea 🙂

Zach and I LOVE these bars. We’ve gotten them many times and the fact that I got one for free at work made me VERY excited for dessert that night.

One problem: Zach would want to share. I did NOT want to share.

I felt VERY guilty (really I did…) but the second I got home I admitted to Zach that I, in fact, had gotten a raspberry crumble bar, but that I wasn’t going to share.

Zach knows me….I think he was just impressed that I didn’t just eat it at work and never say a word about it!

Well. . . I’ve felt guilty ever since and decided that to pay back my wonderful fiance. I would bake ~~him~~ us an entire batch of Raspberry Crumble Bars…double win because I can healthify them! 🙂 And healthify them I did! I cut down half the butter I was seeing in every recipe by using applesauce made my own raspberry filling with half sugar, and substituted whole wheat flour. Just a few changes can really boost up the health value of bake goods. Sure, you can tell my baked goods are healthy, but I actually LIKE the healthier versions more. More satisfying. Anyway…

Were you guys guessing this might have been on my mind by the couple of hints I dropped this week?

Healthy Raspberry Crumble Bars

Ingredients

1 stick (or 1/2 a cup) of room temperature butter
1 cup of applesauce
1/2 cup of sugar
1 + cup of all purpose flour
1 + cup of whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of good granola ( I used Whole Foods Cinnamon Pecan Granola)
10-12 oz of good raspberry jam

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 and butter/spray an 8 X 8 pan.
Mix together the butter, applesauce and sugar in a large bowl until it becomes completely mixed together
Sift together the flour and salt in a separate bowl until distributed together evenly
Begin adding the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients slowly until everything comes together as a ball of dough.
Take about 2/3 of the dough and roll it out into the 8 by 8 pan. It should create about a 1/4 inch layer of dough.
Spread 10-12 ounces of good raspberry jam on top of the dough
Add about 3/4 of the granola to the remaining dough and mix together with your hands.
Spread and/or crumble the remaining dough on top of the raspberry jam.
Sprinkle the remaining granola on top of the dough
Bake for about 50 minutes or until evenly browned.
Let cool and enjoy! 🙂

These are going to be PERFECT on Gus’s birthday hike this morning with some fresh squeezed juice!

Disclaimer: I made my own jam for this recipe, but didn’t share because honestly it was done very haphazerdly and with whatever we had around the house. It included a small container of raspberries from the farmers market, about 2/3 cup of water and 1/2 cup of sugar boiled on the stove top. If you want a great recipe, I loosely followed this recipe http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-thornton/raspberry-crumble-bars-recipe/index.html and just tweeked it for what I had. I have about 2/3 cup left over after using it for the bars).