Today I’m going to show you how to take wholesome ingredients and combine them into delicious fruit bars. This homemade fruit bar recipe is a basic recipe, but this sweet treat has so much potential because of its versatility.
After the directions, I’ll list out different ways you can incorporate other simple ingredients to change up the experience each time. In my humble free-from opinion, that’s what makes this recipe so awesome: you don’t feel like you’re missing out or are super limited.
Tools to Make This Homemade Fruit Bar Recipe
- Food Processor (I have this large Breville, I think there’s a newer version now)
- Rubber Spatula (here’s one I adore)
- Fork
- Offset/Angled Spatula (I have this, along with several others)
Technically, you could mix this by hand in a large bowl or in a stand mixer, however, I’ve made these plenty of times and have the best results with a food processor.
Ingredients for Your Homemade Fruit Bar Recipe
Binding Agent
- TBSP Golden Flax Meal
- 6 TBSP Water (room temperature is fine)
Part 1 Ingredients
- 250g Cassava Flour
- 125g Organic Shortening
- 60g Organic Maple Sugar
- 40g Organic Tiger Nut Flour (tuber, not a tree nut)
- 2 TBSP Oil of Choice
- 2 tsp Organic Vanilla Extract
- 2 tsp Organic Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
Part 2 Ingredient
- 280g Jam of Choice (10 ounces)
Part 3 Ingredients
- 25g Cassava Flour
- 25g Tiger Nut Flour
More Delicious Snack Recipes
If you need gluten free, vegan, allergy friendly snack recipes, I’ve got you covered.
- Baked Oat Fruit Bars
- Vegan Baked Oat Bars (top 9 free, and more)
- Easy Seed & Nut Free Power Balls (top 9 free)
- Oat Free, Gluten Free, Egg Free Protein Muffins (top 9 free, vegan, and more)
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Directions for Your Homemade Fruit Bar Recipe
Start by combining your flax and water together in a small bowl and allow it to gel. This takes several minutes.
Next, place your empty food processor bowl on your kitchen scale. Tare to zero, then add the Part 1 Ingredients. Don’t forget to tare between weighted ingredients. Pulse the ingredients together. Now, add the flax gel and process until a nice dough comes together.
Line a 9″x9″ (22.5×22.5cm) glass baking dish with parchment paper. Put your food processor bowl on the scale and tare to zero. Remove 300 grams of dough from your food processor and transfer it to your baking dish (use your rubber spatula for this). The scale should read “-300”. Press the dough into a flat, even layer (or as close as you can get). Use a fork to poke holes (dock) your dough.
Next, spread your jam layer evenly across the dough (feel free to use more than 280g/10 ounces).
With your processor bowl still on the scale, tare to zero and add the Part 3 Ingredients to the dough that’s still in your food processor. Pulse everything together, and a very crumbly dough should form. Spread this on top of your jam layer.
Bake in your preheated oven at 325f/163c for 20 minutes, uncovered. Allow the bars to cool some before cutting with a sharp knife.
Awesome Ways to Change Up Your Homemade Fruit Bar Recipe
These bars have so much versatility because the dough (both base and crumble) can pair with any type of filling. So if you’ve got a sweet craving for something outside of typical jam flavours, you can make it happen. Here are just a few fun ideas you can try the next time you make this homemade fruit bar recipe.
- Convert these to fruit & nut bars. To make these more like nut bars, you can pulse whole nuts in your food processor to create small pieces. After you add the jam, top with the nut pieces. You can use macadamia nuts, walnuts, pecans, almonds, hazelnuts, or any other nuts you enjoy. You could also do a mix of your favorite nuts.
- Convert these to cereal bars. If you’re a huge fan of cereal, rather than add the Part 3 Ingredients, use up to 80g of cereal in its place. Alternatively, use a larger pan and use all of the dough as the base. Spread in your filling, then create a custom topping with shortening and cereal only. This will make the cereal a more forward flavour.
- Make these a citrus bar! Make a custom free-from curd with orange juice and fold lemon zest into a sweet crumble topping.
- Convert this to an energy bar recipe. Whilst energy bars typically include ingredients such as dates, you could also skip the jam and make a custom chocolate coffee filling for these bars.
More Delicious Recipes to Try
If you’re not a fan of purchasing snacks at the grocery store, here are some tasty options you can make at home.
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Answering Your Homemade Fruit Bar Recipe Questions
Do I need to use a square baking pan?
No, you can use any shape. You could even bake this in a round pan and have “cake slices” of fruit bar.
Could I use chocolate chips instead of jam in this recipe?
Rather than chocolate chips, I’d use a chocolate spread or a ganache. This will allow for a soft set (rather than hard like chocolate chips) and that will make the eating experience more enjoyable.
You could even make this a dark chocolate protein bar by combining a dark chocolate spread or ganache with your fave protein powder and spreading that in the middle.
Can I make this recipe with brown rice syrup instead of the maple sugar?
Liquid sweeteners such as brown rice syrup, maple syrup, sorghum syrup, and even honey could all work. The key is that they’re liquid sweeteners. Granulated sweeteners such as brown sugar, or even unrefined natural sugars such as date sugar and coconut sugar won’t work.
Could I make this with fresh fruit instead of jam?
Depending on the fruit, maybe. You could make a simple fruit compote, or even a chia jam and use that to fill. If your fresh fruit doesn’t have a super high water content (think bananas), mashed fresh fruit could take the place of the jam.
If you want to dip your toe into jam making, here’s an easy recipe for a raspberry chia jam that will show you the process. You can use any fresh fruit in place of the raspberries. Once it’s cooked down, you’d use your homemade fruit jam compote in place of the store bought jam.
Would this be a good breakfast bar?
That’s going to depend on who you ask. I think this homemade fruit bar recipe could serve as a quick bite on busy mornings, but paired with something else. With the sugar content of this recipe, I think it’s more of a dessert. So if you had this with maybe a homemade breakfast sausage like this recipe, I’d say it’s not the worst breakfast out there.
Is there a healthy fat I could use to fill this rather than jam?
You’d need to get a little creative. When it comes to these bar, coconut oil would be the easiest healthy fat to incorporate. To do something like that, you’d melt down your coconut oil on medium heat in a small saucepan. Once fully melted, stir in some kind of filling. It could be crushed nuts, fruit slices, shredded veg + sweetener, or something else all together.
You’d use that in place of the jam. After baking, allow the bars to cool in the fridge overnight to ensure your coconut oil has set solid, then cut with a sharp knife. For this to work, you’d need to love the taste of coconut oil.
You could also try making some kind of sweet avocado cream and mix in a little coconut oil as a setting agent, and you’d have a lovely healthy fat that way.
