Deliciously healthy Caramel Apple Pie Bars made with real, wholesome ingredients. These bars are the perfect fall treat with three layers of flavor! They’re made with ingredients like almond flour, oat flour, organic maple syrup, and more!
ingredients needed:
Fresh Apples: It’s apple season! I used honey crisp for this recipe, but grab your favorites from the apple orchard. Fresh, in season apples will make all the difference in flavor.
Oat Flour: Oat flour is used in both the crust and the crumble in this recipe.
Almond Flour: Used in conjunction with oat flour, it makes a perfectly flakey crust for the base of the apple pie bars.
Organic Maple Syrup: The maple syrup is used in both the crust and the homemade caramel filling to naturally sweeten.
Ghee: Ghee is used in this recipe in replace of butter. If you’re unfamiliar with ghee, it’s clarified butter, making it lactose-free. For a vegan substitute, use your favorite vegan butter 1:1.
Caramel Filling: This recipe uses my favorite healthy paleo caramel sauce to coat the apples in the filling. It’s made with pure maple syrup, coconut oil, and almond butter to create a silky caramel sauce.
Whole Oats: Used in the crumble along with oat flour, ghee, and coconut sugar.
Coconut Sugar: Used in the crumble topping to naturally sweeten and give a delicious cararmel flavor.
Cinnamon, Vanilla Extract, Salt: Used in the crumble topping.
how to make healthy apple pie bars:
This recipe is broken down into 3 major steps. First, making the crust. Second, making the caramel apple filling. And third, making the crumble topping.
While there are a lot of ingredients in this recipe, some are repeated throughout the three different steps and most are things you already have in your pantry (i.e oats, oat flour, almond flour, maple syrup, ghee, ect).
First, preheat your oven to 400 degrees F and prepare all ingredients. Line a baking dish with a piece of parchment paper. After this, you will combine oat flour, almond flour, melted ghee, and pure maple syrup to create the crust. Gently press the dough into your baking dish and bake for 10 minutes.
While the crust bakes, prepare your filling. In a small saucepan, combine maple syrup, almond butter, and coconut oil on low heat to make your healthy caramel sauce. In a separate skillet pan, add peeled and diced apples with a few tablespoons of water to soften. Once softened, add the caramel sauce until all apples are coated.
After the crust is baked, add the caramel apple filling to the top. Next, make the crumble topping. Combine whole oats, oat flour, ghee at room temperature, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla extract. Mix with a large spoon until all combined and a crumble topping forms. Using clean hands, crumble the mixture on top to the apple filling to complete the third layer.
Add the pan back to the oven and bake for 20-25 more minutes. Let the bars mostly cool and remove from the baking dish using the parchment paper sides. Drizzle with remaining caramel sauce and cut into bars. Enjoy!
Healthy Caramel Apple Pie Bars
Equipment
- 8×8 or 2 quart baking dish
Ingredients
For Crust:
- 1 cup oat flour
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1/3 cup ghee, melted or vegan butter
- 1/4 cup organic maple syrup
For Filling:
- 4 medium-sized honey crisp apples peeled and diced
- 1/4 cup almond butter
- 2 tbsp organic maple syrup
- 1Β½ tbsp coconut oil
For Crumble Topping:
- 1/2 cup oat flour
- 1 cup whole oats
- 1/4 cup coconut sugar
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- a pinch of salt
- 6 tbsp ghee, room temperature or vegan butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
For Crust:
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. In a medium-sized bowl, combine almond flour, oat flour, maple syrup, and melted ghee until a dough forms.
- Line an 8×8 baking dish with a strip of parchment paper. This step is important to be able to remove the bars once finished. Add the dough to the lined baking dish. Using clean hands, gently press the dough until it's evenly spread, covering the whole dish.
- Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven after 10 minutes and set aside.
For Filling:
- Peel and dice apples into small pieces. In a skillet pan, add a few tablespoons of water and let the apples soften on medium-high heat for about 7 minutes.
- While the apples soften, make the caramel sauce. In a small saucepan on low heat, add maple syrup, almond butter, and coconut oil- stirring occasionally. After about 2 minutes, a silky caramel sauce should form.
- Drain any remaining water from the softened apples and add the caramel sauce on top, leaving about 2 tablespoons aside for drizzling. Combine the apples with the caramel sauce until fully coated.
- Next, add the apple filling on top of the crust.
For Crumble Topping:
- In a medium sized bowl, combine whole oats, oat flour, coconut sugar, salt, and cinnamon with a large spoon. Add the ghee (room temperature) and vanilla extract and combine until a crumble forms. It may take some extra mixing until all the ingredients stick to the ghee.
- With clean hands, crumble the topping on top of the apple filling to finish the third layer.
- Add the pan back to the hot oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool. Once mostly cooled, remove the bars from the dish using the parchment paper sides.
- Drizzle with the extra caramel sauce and cut into bars. Enjoy warm or cooled!