Fruit Crumble Bars

The holidays are always crazy, especially working at a bakery and finishing up my last semester of school, but I have had some spare time to bake and explore some new recipes. I’m always looking for a breakfast pastry to make so when I run out the door I can have a quick meal. Besides muffins, I really enjoy coffee cakes and crumbles. I decided to make an oat crumble type bar with a fruit filling. This bar is extremely simple since the crust also acts as the crumble topping. I used a mixture of brown rice flour, bean flour, gluten-free oats, brown sugar, spices, and a fat. I preferred the brown sugar since it has a deeper flavor and caramelizes nicely. I’ve made this recipe using both coconut oil and earth balance margarine. They have slightly different outcomes in both texture and flavor. I tend to prefer the earth balance since it gives a more buttery flavor but using the coconut oil was delicious as well.

            Another great thing about this type of dessert/breakfast/snack is that it’s versatile. Although I used a mixture of blueberries and raspberries you could use any fruit you want. You can even use frozen fruit if what you want is not in season. But be sure to not defrost the fruit, its best used frozen. The filling consists of fresh or frozen fruit, preserves, zest, and a little rice flour for binding. The sweetness comes from the fruit itself as well as the preserves. Zest of a lemon or orange really brightens up the product.

Heres how I made my fruit crumble bars step by step:

Here is the dry mixture combined with the coconut oil (or earth balance) and mixed until pea size crumbs are formed.

The mixture is then pressed into a parchment lined baking dish. Although I used an 8 x 8 inch pan in the picture, its best to use a 13 x 9 inch pan. The crust was too thick with the 8 x 8 inch pan!

Bake the crust until golden brown.

Scoop in the filling, sprinkle crumble over top, and bake until brown and bubbly.

Ta-daa, you have fruit crumble bars! Cut them into squares and keep either on your kitchen counter for about 3 days or in the refrigerator for about 1 week.