This recipe is FAST, everyone.  Fast also means easy clean-up, in my book.  I don’t like super sugary foods, and these jam bars fit the bill.  I used blueberry jam because it’s my favorite, but of course you could use blackberry, raspberry, strawberry, apricot, or any other jam flavor you can think of.  The blueberry jam I purchased was low-sugar, and just sweetened with fruit juice.  I am always afraid of making things too sweet, and I would definitely recommend using low-sugar or no sugar added jam for baking.  These jam bars have been a great afternoon snack with a cup of tea for me, but I could see these being served for breakfast or brunch, as well.  As always, the bars are gluten-free and nut-free.  The next time I make them, I’ll use strawberry jam so that my daughter gets to eat her favorite flavor, too!

It only took a a few seconds to gather the simple ingredients for the recipe, and I only needed to use one bowl.  Into the bowl, I combined gluten-free oats, gluten-free flour, brown sugar, salt, and nutmeg.  Like I said, super simple!

The next step is to add the wet ingredients to form a crumbly dough.  To the same bowl, I added unsweetened applesauce and just a few tablespoons of vegetable oil.  Besides being easy, this recipe is pretty healthy, as you can see, with limited ingredients.  The dough was wet and crumbly, but held together nicely.

I sprayed an 8 inch square pan with cooking spray, and then poured most of the mixture into the pan.  In my bowl, I still had a heaping 1/3 cup of the dough mixture left.  I pressed with my fingers until the bottom of the pan was covered with dough.  It wasn’t a super thick layer, however.

This is how much dough I still kept in my bowl:

On top of the pressed dough, I poured about 3/4 of a cup of low-sugar blueberry jam.  I spread it around in a nice layer with a butter knife, until it was well-covered.  If you could not find a no sugar added jam or low sugar jam, you may not want to spread as much jam (it could get quite sweet).  Then, I took the last bit of dough (the 1/3 cup) left in my bowl and sprinkled it on top.

The jam bars went into a preheated 375 degree oven for 25 minutes.  I pulled them out just as the top was turning golden brown and the jam was bubbling.

Although it was difficult, I waited until the jam bars were fully cooled, and then I cut them into 12 rectangles.  The flavor of the jam really shines through when you take a bite, and the bottom dough is nice and chewy.  Clean up took 3 minutes since it was just one bowl and a few measuring cups.  Enjoy!