MSG Free Honey-Nutmeg Apple Crumble Bars
Warm spiced apples, golden crumble, and a drizzle of honey — these bars are the kind of cozy baking project that makes your whole kitchen smell incredible. The filling leans on honey and nutmeg to deliver deep, natural sweetness without any flavor enhancers or additives, so what you taste is purely the fruit and spice doing their thing. Rice flour and tapioca starch stand in for all-purpose flour, giving the crust and crumble a delicate, slightly crisp texture that holds together beautifully once cooled. Cold butter worked into the oat-and-flour mixture creates those irresistible clumpy, golden pockets on top that shatter just slightly when you bite in. The apple filling gets coated in melted butter, honey, and a touch more tapioca starch, which thickens everything into a jammy, tender layer as it bakes. Every ingredient here is straightforward and easy to verify, which means no guesswork about hidden additives sneaking into your dessert. Cut into nine generous bars, these are equally at home on a weekend brunch spread or wrapped up and tucked into a lunchbox.
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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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