The bars are adapted from the Weelicious Lunches cookbook by Catherine McCord who operates the fabulous blog, Weelicious. It's a lovely cookbook for anyone looking to jazz up their wee one's lunch or bring some variety to your own brown bag. The original recipe can be found here. I made it the week it was posted and it was good! The perfect 3:00 snack - buttery, fruity, and filling. I made it again a few weeks later, but this time I added some spice to give it a little something extra. The result was still buttery, fruity, filling, but spicey and fall-like.
Then I decided to take these bars a step further and exchange the jam for apple butter. Why? Because a love for apple butter is a genetic condition in our family. And although I'm perfectly satisfied to continue slathering it on toast, I'm always looking for new places to use it. It was even the feature ingredient in the first recipe I posted a year ago!
Anyway friends, these bars are little squares of fall bursting with flavor, spice, butter, and goodness. You could even say they are kind of healthy with all those whole grains minus the butter...and sugar...and the sugar in the apple butter... But really when you compare that to all those preservatives and additives in store-bought bars then clearly these bars win! In my world, homemade always wins. every. single. time.
