This recipe came to us via two sources. Our initial encounter with it was through Smitten Kitchen, where a strawberry rhubarb version was featured. Tracing the recipe back to it’s original source, we found it in Yvonne Ruperti’s “One Bowl Baking,” which of course piqued our interest and garnered a Scooby-Doo-style “UurrrRRRR?” response, ears perked and eyes wide with curiosity. Naturally, we had to subject the recipe to our special brand of tweaking, but the adaptation couldn’t have been simpler. We swapped out the All-Purpose flour from the original recipe with our favorite utilitarian Cookie Flour Blend, and then used coconut oil in place of the butter. Done and done.
We now have a great, vegan, gluten free fruit bar recipe that you will definitely want to add to your go-to recipe file ASAP. The crumble recipe does double duty as both the crust and the topping, and the fruit filling is a simple matter of combining four ingredients—fruit, sugar, lemon juice and cornstarch.
We blew the “one bowl” aspect of the recipe by bringing in a second bowl to stir together all of the filling ingredients, rather than adding them to the baking dish individually, as the original recipe suggests. We wanted to combine them thoroughly for flavor and texture reasons, so we’re standing by it. Even with that, clean up was still a breeze and was easily done while the bars baked. Since you can use any fresh, seasonal fruit for the filling, this is a year-round treat that you can have ready in under an hour from start to finish.
We chose to take advantage of the seasonal abundance of fresh blackberries for our version today. As a testament to the versatility of this recipe, we’ve made the bars with both blueberries and strawberries in the past. Depending on personal taste and time of year, you can easily use apples, peaches, apricots, raspberries, or perhaps even bananas. We won’t tell if you, um, spill some vegan chocolate morsels into the mix, so go for it. This is one of those “everyone in the pool” recipes, and by “pool,” we mean “mixing bowl.”
Not being overly sweet, the bars waltz the line between dessert treats and an on-the-go breakfast option. One recommendation that we borrowed from Smitten Kitchen was to chill the bars before cutting them. It made the process so much easier. Once they are cut and portioned, wrap them individually and store them in the refigerator. They’ll maintain their cookie-like crispness and last a few more days than if you left them out at room temperature.
Smitten Kitchen warned that the bars would fall apart more easily if left out for too long, but our use of coconut oil instead of butter seems to have remedied that, since coconut oil solidifies as it cools. You can say it. We rule. Now go forth and bake some bars!
Adapted from One Bowl Baking via Smitten Kitchen.
- 80 grams (1 cup) gluten free rolled oats
- 95 grams (about ¾ cup plus to 2 tablespoons) gluten-free Cookie dough flour
- ½ teaspoon xanthan gum
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- 95 grams (½ cup) dark brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon table salt
- 85 grams (6 tablespoons) coconut oil, melted
- 1 - 12 ounce container blackberries
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon (15 grams) granulated sugar, divided
- Heat oven to 375° F. Line bottom and two sides of 8-by-8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper.
- Place oats, gluten free cookie flour, xanthan gum, cinnamon brown sugar and salt in a large bowl and mix. Pour melted coconut oil over, and stir until clumps form. Set aside ½ cup of the crumble mixture. Press the rest of the crumb mixture evenly in the bottom of the pan.
- In a small bowl, mix blackberries, cornstarch, lemon juice and sugar. Add spread evenly over crumb mixture. Scatter reserved crumbs over fruit and bake bars for 30 to 40 minutes (firmer fruits will take longer), until crumble topping is golden brown.
- Let cool to room temperature then chill in fridge before slicing and serving.
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