These low carb bars have a tender peanut butter crust and a raspberry chia seed jam filling. A healthy twist on Peanut Butter and Jelly bars.
So I thought I might start a fun little series on All Day I Dream About Food called Makeover Monday. The idea here is that ever Monday, I will take a conventional sugar-and-flour recipe and overhaul it completely so that it’s low carb and gluten-free. Without sacrificing flavour and texture. Any of you who have played around with beloved recipes, trying to get them to be low carb will know that this can be tricky. Achieving similar results with our limited, alternative ingredients can stretch your creativity in so many ways. But when I am successful, there is nothing more satisfying. I feel a little like I conquered the world.
The reality is that I am often making over conventional recipes. I get so much inspiration and ideas from the food around me, from other bloggers and cookbooks and magazines, and I find myself mulling over how I could make a low carb version. But I thought it would be fun to formalize it a bit and bring you at least one recipe a week that I have deliberately made over. And I thought it would be fun to include you in the game and allow you to send me the recipes you want to see made over.
Now, keep in mind that I can’t possibly make over everything everyone sends me. I already have a long list of requests and I don’t have a shot in hell of ever getting to them all. And I have my own ideas of things I want to revamp too. But I do want to encourage you all to send me your ideas, your family recipes, the things you REALLY want to see made edible on a low carb diet. No promises but I’d love your inspiration too. I think this could be really fun.
My first source of inspiration for Makeover Monday comes from a Facebook reader. She saw my Peanut Butter Fudge Brownies and put her oar in, requesting Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars. I believe my response was something like “well, that shouldn’t be too hard”. But apparently I didn’t move on it fast enough, because she gave me a little nudge the other day and I thought I’d better get crackin’. And now I am glad I waited a bit, because by that time, I’d made Raspberry Chia Seed Jam and I realized that it would be the perfect filling for the bars. It’s easy to make and the chia gives these bars an extra healthy twist.
Peanut Butter & Jam Bars – Low Carb and Gluten-Free
Ingredients
Crust:
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1 cup peanut flour defatted, 12%
- 1/2 cup Swerve Sweetener or other erythritol
- 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch salt
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup peanut butter melted
- 1/4 cup coconut oil melted
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp stevia extract
Filling:
- 1 cup Raspberry Chia Seed Jam
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325F and grease an 8 inch square pan.
- In large mixing bowl, whisk together almond flour, peanut flour, Swerve, baking powder and salt.
- Stir in egg, peanut butter, coconut oil, vanilla and stevia until mixture comes together.
- Press about 2/3 of the dough into the bottom of prepared baking pan. Bake 10 minutes.
- Remove from oven and spread with jam.
- Take remaining dough and crumble it over the jam, pressing lightly to adhere.
- Bake another 18 minutes, or until just beginning to brown lightly and firm up to the touch.
- Remove and let cool completely.
