Gluten Free Honey-Nutmeg Apple Crumble Bars
Warm spiced apples, golden crumble, and a drizzle of honey — these bars hit every note you want from a fall-inspired bake. The base and topping come together from a single bowl using rolled oats, rice flour, and tapioca starch, which means no wheat flour needed and no awkward substitutions that throw off the texture. Cold butter worked into the dry mix creates those irresistible clumpy, pea-sized crumbs that bake up crisp on the bottom and lightly crunchy on top. The apple filling gets its depth from honey instead of refined syrup and a quiet warmth from ground nutmeg, making every bite feel a little more special than your average fruit bar. Tapioca starch pulls double duty — once in the crust mixture and once in the filling — keeping everything cohesive without any gummy or gritty aftertaste that can plague grain-free baking. Letting the bars cool completely is the one step you really cannot rush, since the filling needs that time to set into clean, sliceable layers. Whether you pack them for a lunchbox or serve them slightly warm with a scoop of ice cream, they disappear fast.
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Learn more →Ingredients
9 servings
For the crust and crumble
- 1 cup rolled oats
- ¾ cup rice flour
- ¼ cup tapioca starch
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ tsp fine sea salt
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cut into ½-inch cubes
For the apple filling
- 3 medium apples (about 1 ½ lb), peeled, cored, and cut into ¼-inch slices
- 3 tbsp honey
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tbsp tapioca starch
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
Instructions
- 1
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a 9×9-inch baking pan with parchment paper, leaving a 2-inch overhang on two opposite sides to use as handles for lifting the bars out later.
- 2
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the rolled oats, rice flour, tapioca starch (the crust-and-crumble portion), granulated sugar, and fine sea salt until evenly combined. Add the cold butter cubes and work them in with a pastry cutter or your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse, clumpy crumbs with some pea-sized pieces of butter remaining — do not overwork it into a smooth dough.
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