Strawberry Streusel Bars with White Chocolate Drizzle

This weekend Joe and I are in charge of dessert. We have an exciting weekend planned at the lake with both my parents and Joe's parents. Now that Joe's parents have permanently moved to Okoboji we don't have many opportunities to have all of our family together. I think the last time we all got together was for pizza and beer shortly after we got engaged.

This is not the first time we've made this dessert. I brought it to work a couple weeks ago and we loved it so much we decided to make it again to bring to a friend's house. This is actually the third time we've made this dessert in less than a month. It's good enough, you won't get sick of it!

Strawberry Streusel Bars with White Chocolate Drizzle

altered from Simply Scratch

Ingredients:

• 2 cups old fashioned oats
• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cups white sugar
• 3/4 cups light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup cold butter, cut Into small pieces
• 1/2 cup strawberry jam
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 2 cups strawberries, sliced
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, both sugars, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the chopped up cold butter and work it into the dry ingredients with your fingers or a pastry blender until the mixture looks like small crumbles. Reserve 1 cup of this mixture.

Dump the remaining crumb mixture into an un-greased 15” x 10” pan (jellyroll pan) and press it into an even crust. Bake in 350 degree oven for 12-13 minutes or until it is firm to touch.

Remove pan from oven. Warm the jam in a small sauce pan over low heat and then stir in the lemon zest. Pour and the warm jam over the warm crust and spread with a pastry brush. Spread the quartered strawberries over the crust. Sprinkle on the reserved cup of crumb mixture.

 

Return pan to 350 degree F oven and bake for another 20-25 minutes or until the crumbs on top are a light golden brown. Then remove it from the oven and let the pan cool for 1 hour. Once cooled, cut into bars.

Melt the white chocolate in a glass bowl over a pot of simmering water until just melted. With a spoon dip in white chocolate and drizzle it in thin lines over the streusel top. Serve.

 

Few Notes:

·         I used a little more than 1/2 cup of the jam, maybe 3/4 cup

·         The first two times making this I used strawberry rhubarb jam 

·         You might be able to tell in the picture above that I forgot to reserve 1 cup of  the streusel, whoops!