Recipe: Oatmeal Fruit Bars   Source: The Toronto Star  Date: 1943

I have started to sift through some of the many recipes my great-grandmother clipped out of newspapers.  I am finding the newspapers not only great for finding recipes, but also a glimpse into a by-gone era.   This recipe came from a December 1943 edition of the newspaper.   The fruit bars themselves contain mincemeat, and since it was my great-grandmother reading this paper, when it states that “our grandmothers and great-grandmothers would always make mincemeat when Christmas time came around” it is referring to my great-great grandmothers, and my great-great-great grandmothers!!   That’s quite a few greats!  Don’t you love being part of a tradition passed down through so many generations?

She also states that the recipe is being printed as a substitute for date squares as dates were a “casualty of war-times” and the mincemeat recipe included is meatless due to women wanting to “spend their precious meat rations on more nourishing dishes.”

The back of this newspaper clip is full of stories of holiday celebrating during wartime.

And the recipe shares a page with a story on achieving the perfect made-up look in less time, and this article on baby’s bowel movements (because that’s what everyone wants to read about as they are contemplating new recipes…..)

 This was a very simple and straight-forward recipe.  And an excellent use of the mincemeat I still have in the freezer from last years green tomato crop.

Oatmeal Fruit Bars

• 1 1/2 cups pastry flour or 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour)
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (I used a little over half a cup of Demerara)
• 1/2 tsp soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup shortening and 1/4 cup butter (I used 1/2 cup butter)
• 1 1/2 cups moist mincemeat

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. 

Cut in the butter.

Press half the mixture into a greased 8×8 pan.

Spread mincemeat on top.

Cover with the other half of the flour and oat mixture.  The original recipe said to use a spatula to do this – I just used my fingers. 

Bake at 375 for 30 – 40 minutes.  When cool, cut into squares.  Then eat.  Yum!

These were really good.  The perfect balance between crumb and mincemeat.  I think they would be good with a date filling too!