Peach & Cherry Oat Crumb Bars

I don't know how we ended up in an awkward camping situation.  Here's how it started...

We made plans to go camping with my friend and a friend of hers (T).  Then, T backed out.  During that time, my friend started dating a new guy. She asked me if we'd be okay with her bringing the new guy camping in place of her friend.  The fact that she hadn't known him long enough to even get his last name made me pause a bit.  But, she caught me after I had just come back from drinks with friend and I said, "Sure - bring him along!"

Then, she told me about this new guy, but did the worst sales job ever (not that she needs to sell me on the guy).  Basically she told me about all of the undesirable (in a significant other) things the guy has done in his life.

Great.  This should be interesting.

To offset the potential weirdness with the new guy, we invited another couple along.  We figured we could just hang out in a canoe all day if things were weird.

Here's the canoe:

Enough said.

Well....at least the food was good.  Here's dinner from day 1:

Part of dinner from day 2:

Definitely not roughing it.

R and I were responsible for breakfast.  But, I decided to also bring a dessert.  I still had peaches on my mind after preserving peaches four ways and put them to good use making Deeba's Cherry & Peach Oat Crumb Bars.  If you're a foodblogger, you probably already know Deeba and visit her site regularly.  If not, go check out her beautiful blog.  She puts such care into each and every post, it's a delight to read (not to mention beautiful photography).

Cherry & Peach Oat Crumb Bars

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup vanilla sugar
1 cup rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 vanilla bean scraped
200gms chilled butter, cubed (about 7/8 of a cup)
1 large egg
3-4 peaches, pitted and sliced
100gms cherries, pitted and halved
1 sachet vanilla sugar

Method:

Preheat oven to 190C (375F). Line a 9 X 13″ baking tin with baking parchment.

Whisk the flour, sugar, oats, baking powder, baking soda and salt in the bowl of the blender to mix.

Add chilled butter, vanilla bean and egg and process until you have a breadcrumb like mix.

Turn out 2/3 of the crumb mix into the prepared tin and pat gently into place.

Top with sliced peaches and pitted cherries.  My battery operated scale needs a new battery, so I just estimated how many peaches and cherries to add.  Sprinkle with vanilla sugar if using (I didn't use this).

Scatter the remaining 1/3 crumb mix over the fruit.

Bake for 30 minutes, until the top is light brown.

Cool completely before cutting into squares (if you can wait that long).  Store in an airtight box in the fridge.

The bars were so delicious!  This is my kind of dessert!  Thanks Deeba.