Cinnamon Raisin Bars

Believe it or not, at age 35 and with a household of my own I am still treated to my mom's cooking fairly often. On days when I have been desperate for a change of scenery, another set of hands, or the chance to escape to Trader Joe's ALONE for an hour, I load up the children and am on her doorstep inside of 15 minutes. Of course the loading takes twice that long, but driving? 15 minutes. I AM SO LUCKY. I joke that if my husband's job ever relocated us to some exotic locale, my parents had better start cruising realtor.com too. I credit my mom (and dad!) for helping maintain my sanity during the last 6.5 years of adventures in stay-at-home parenting.

And it never fails. When the crafts and science projects have been cleaned up and it's time for us to head home, she hands me a bag of tupperware. Dinner!!! It's just about the nicest thing she could have done for me, short of a spontaneous kiddie sleepover at Mimi's. Let's just say that my husband is happy to hear I'm on my way home with food from my mom's kitchen. She is a fantastic cook and an even better baker. If you hang around the blog long enough, you'll hear me say this again and again.

I began gathering recipes to blog about by immediately heading for the cook book she made me (it's where this other childhood favorite came from). These raisin bars are heaven for oatmeal cookie lovers. My mom first made them from a Betty Crocker cook book shortly after she and my dad married (37 years ago last week!). Enjoy!

 

 

Cinnamon Raisin Bars

Author: Erin

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 35 mins

Total time: 50 mins

Ingredients

• Filling:


• 1/4 cup sugar


• 1 T cornstarch


• 2 cup raisins


• Cookie Crust:


• 1/2 cup butter


• 1 1/2 cup flour


• 1 cup brown sugar


• 1/2 t baking soda


• 1/2 t salt


• 1 1/2 cup oatmeal


• Icing:


• 1 cup powdered sugar


• 1/4 t cinnamon


• 3 T milk (approximately...enough for drizzling)

Instructions

1. For filling, combine 1/4 cup white sugar and cornstarch in a small pan. Stir in 1 cup of water and raisins. Cook over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Cool.


2. Cream butter and brown sugar.


3. Stir together dry ingredients and add to butter mixture.


4. Add oatmeal and 1 T of water. Mix till crumbly.


5. Pat 1/2 of oatmeal mixture into greased 9x13 pan. Spread with rasin filling.


6. Mix 1 T of water in to remaining oatmeal mix and crumble over raisin filling.


7. Bake at 350 for 35 min. Cool, drizzle with icing, and cut into bars.

3.1.09

3.1.09