Xanthan Gum Free Maple-Ginger Pear Crumble Bars
These bars are everything you want in a fall bake — warm spiced pears, a buttery golden crumble, and that deep, caramel-like sweetness that only pure maple syrup can deliver. The filling gets cooked down on the stovetop with fresh ginger until it turns glossy and jam-like, so every bite is intensely fragrant and tender without being watery or loose. What makes the whole thing come together so cleanly is tapioca starch, which does double duty — binding the crust and thickening the filling — so there's genuinely no need for any gum-based stabilizer at any point in the recipe. Rice flour and rolled oats give the base and crumble real texture and a slightly nutty flavor that pairs beautifully with the pear. Many packaged bars and gluten-free baked goods sneak in binders that can be hard to track down on an ingredient label, so making these from scratch puts you fully in control. They slice into neat, sturdy bars once cooled, making them just as good for an afternoon snack as they are for dessert.
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Learn more →Ingredients
9 servings
For the crust and crumble
- 1 cup rolled oats
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Nature's Path Organic Whole Grain Old Fashioned Rolled Oats - 18 Oz - ¾ cup rice flour
- ¼ cup tapioca starch
- ⅓ cup pure maple syrup
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ cup 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 pure maple syrup
- 1 tbsp fresh ginger, finely grated
- 1 tbsp tapioca starch
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter
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 1/4 cup amount), baking powder, and salt. 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. Drizzle in the 1/3 cup maple syrup and stir with a fork until the mixture just comes together into a crumbly, slightly sticky dough.
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