Carrageenan Free Honey-Pear Crumble Bars
These bars are the kind of thing you pull out of the oven and immediately want to eat straight from the pan — golden, fragrant, and filled with soft, honey-kissed pears that cook down into something almost jammy. The filling comes together on the stovetop with ripe pears, a generous pour of honey, a touch of nutmeg, and a splash of apple cider vinegar that keeps everything bright and balanced. Tapioca starch does the thickening work in both the filling and the crust, giving you that glossy, spoonable consistency without any of the gummy additives that sneak into so many store-bought fruit bars and fillings. The base and crumble are built from rolled oats, rice flour, and cold butter — simple, wholesome ingredients that bake up into something satisfyingly crisp on the outside and tender underneath. Carrageenan is a common additive in processed dairy and packaged desserts, but since this recipe relies on plain unsalted butter and nothing processed, you can bake with total confidence. Letting the bars cool completely before cutting is the one step worth being patient about — it's what gives you clean slices and a filling that holds its shape. These are equally at home on a weekend brunch spread or wrapped up for a lunchbox treat.
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Learn more →Ingredients
9 servings
For the crust and crumble
- 1 ½ cups rolled oats
- ¾ cup rice flour
- ¼ cup tapioca starch
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ tsp fine sea salt
- ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cut into ½-inch cubes
For the pear filling
- 3 medium ripe pears (about 1 ½ lb), peeled, cored, and cut into ½-inch dice
- 3 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp tapioca starch
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
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. Scatter the cold butter cubes over the dry mixture 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 work it until smooth.
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