This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)
A few months back we celebrated my little one’s 1st birthday. We had our family over, and my older one, that was 3.5 years old at the time, was standing outside talking with one of her older cousins. I am not sure what was really said in the conversation between them, but she ran inside crying her heart out and so scared, claiming that her cousin told her that there are predators beyond the fence of our yard, and they will come eat us at night. We tried to calm her down and explain this wasn’t true, but she just cried and cried and was scared, and between one tear to another, told her daddy in a shaking voice: “daddy, don’t forget, if they come eat us, to call.. to cal.. the hunter, you call the hunter daddy!”.
It took us about an hour to completely calm her down, and for several days after that she kept asking me if I locked the doors and whether the windoes are closed, and if there’s a police station nearby.
And all this time all I could think about, is how sad is it, that kids fears, scary as they may be for them, are hardly as scary as the real world really is. And every time I told her there really aren’t any predators beyond our yard’s fence, and that mommy and daddy wouldn’t let any predator or any bad people come inside the house, what I thought to myself was that really, predators are the least of our worries, the problem is that there are mean people, and this I cannot tell her and break her sweet childhood naivety.
I was also a little jealous that her imagination provided a happy ending to this fear, how lovely it is for her that she is sure that even if the predators would eat us, the hunter would come rescue us. And how much fun (and honor) it is for us that we get to be those people for her, the ones that can calm her, and shed some sense of security, and be her safe place, and I just wish we always will be.
And why is this story here? Well, simply my weird connotations.. Little Red Riding Hood -> forest -> raspberries. Nevermind.. In any case, this recipe, while I like it best using raspberries, would actually work with any other berry, so go for the kind you like best (some of the pictures in this post are using raspberries and some using strawberries).
- For the crust:
- 1.5 cups rolled oats
- ½ cup whole spelt flour
- ¼ cup almond flour
- ½ cup pure maple syrup
- ¼ cup coconut oil
- 1 tea spoon baking powder
- ¼ tea spoon salt
- For the jam:
- 300 grams raspberries (fresh or frozen)
- 2 table spoons sugar or maple syrup
- 1 table spoons chia seeds
- For the swirl:
- 2 table spoons peanut butter
- Optional: ¼ cup dark chocolate chips or chopped chocolate, chopped salted peanuts
- Warm an oven to 180 C.
- Melt the coconut oil in a bain-mary or using your microwave. Grind the oats in a herb/coffee grinding machine, or a food processor into flour.
- Mix the oatmeal flour, almond flour, spelt flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl, add the coconut oil and the maple syrup, and work with your hands to create a rounded dough. Line a baking parchment paper in a (25x15 cm) pan and use your hands to spread evenly and pack down. Lay a piece of parchment paper on top and use a drinking glass to press down firmly and pack the mixture in place.Send to the oven for about 10 minutes, until slightly brown.
- In the meanwhile, prepare the jam: warm a non stick skillet with the raspberries and sugar or maple inside. Use a wooden spoon to mix the raspberries continuously, until they caramelize and turn runny (see picture above, it takes about 5 minutes). Place in a jar or a tall bowl and blend with a hand blender until it is uniform (or leave it a bit less runny, if you like that), then add the chia seeds in.
- Pour the jam onto the crust and spread it evenly around. Add the peanut butter, and use the thin side of the table spoon to swirl the peanut butter with the jam. Add the chocolate chips and/or the peanuts (if using), and send to the oven for about 20 minutes, until the edges are brown.
- Cut into squares only after it is completely cooled, preferably in the fridge.
P.S.
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Moran