(Hopefully) Delicious Raspberry Oatmeal Cookie Bars!

Even though I worked a bit late and felt exhausted during the commute home tonight, I finally got around to baking these raspberry oatmeal bars that I'd been planning to make for about uh...3 weeks now? I guess with all the lovely concerts lately and purposeful rise in my social activity, it's been hard to find both the time and energy to cook anything real...

To the left is what this recipe is supposed to produce (except I think this reviewer might've used a different flavor of jam). And then there's 2 photos of my version. I think they were sliiightly undercooked, but still pretty tasty. It actually reminded me of a crunchy granola bar. But then I've eaten like a box of those in 2 days so maybe the taste is just stuck on my tongue =p. My roommate and Paco also gave their approval. Although I used less jam than the recipe called for and an all-fruit one at that...these are on the sweet side kids. Might wanna arm yerself with a tall glass o' cold milk as you chomp in!

As usual, I made some changes and substitutions to the recipe. I doubled the recipe and lined a 9 x 13 inch pyrex pan with parchment paper (a baker's best friend 8p). Out of brown sugar, so I just used white sugar and added a few teaspoons of molasses. Replaced 1/3 of the butter with applesauce (the crust would probably be less crumbly with full amount of buttah). Added a teaspoon of cinnamon to the oatmeal mixture. Lastly, I sprinkled just a few white chocolate chips over the jam as well as some crushed cashew pieces on top of the whole thing.

I guess the final verdict about the taste will have to wait until tomorrow, when I offer these to my coworkers. There's something magical about free food though, especially sweets. Let's just say I have a hunch it'll be well-received.

The only thing I'm less than satisfied about is the performance of my camera tonight. Maybe I'm just used to the glossy HQ (and drool-inducing) photos of the veteran food pornographers *cough* i mean...bloggers. But still, I don't think it's too much to expect that my digicam could at least get one close-up that's not horribly blurry. C'est la vie I suppose...one more thing to save up for. Insomnia's been dogging me again this week. TGI(almost)F!