Paleo Apricot Bars | Healthy Jam Bars

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These Paleo Apricot Bars with their delicious shortbread-like base, apricot butter middle, and crunchy nut topping are the perfect easy healthy treat.

You can use whatever fruit filling you like, so the possibilities for these Healthy Jam Bars are truly endless

These Gluten Free Cake Bars are a great healthy dessert - made with fruit and nuts. Grain free & Sugar Free with a Vegan option.

One of the benefits of living in a foreign country is the exposure to new foods, or more fascinating, new combinations of ingredients I already know.

For example, Slovaks eat their french toast as savoury, with ketchup and tartar sauce and lunch meat.

When I tell people we eat it sweet, with whipping cream and maple syrup (or what have you), they make a face that says “Whaaaat?”

Or when I make a beef stew and Slovaks say “This is so delicious! I’ve never had this before!”

Every single ingredient in a regular beef stew is a normal ingredient in Slovakia, they’ve just never put it together that way before.

One combination I haven’t gotten used to is sweet pasta. If it’s homemade potato pasta, it’s delicious.

With regular spaghetti noodles–well–I just haven’t quite gotten there.

Think pasta–with jam! After delivering twins (two years ago as I write!), I got a plate of spaghetti, poppy seeds, and a pile of icing sugar at the hospital. Fortunately, I had brought my own vittals too :).

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More On these Fruit & Nut Cake Bars

Anyway, that’s how I learned this healthy apricot walnut squares recipe. It’s not a weird food combination (like the sweet spaghetti), but it’s a new recipe combo for me.

These Fruit & Nut Cake Bars (made with jam and walnuts here) are as common here in Slovakia as a chocolate cake is in North America.

It’s a staple of my mother-in-law’s, but I’ve revised it to be free of gluten, grains, refined sugars, and dairy.

The original is one of my husband’s favourites, and he said this revision does them justice. I may have eaten the whole pan of the first attempt on my own, they are that good (well, when I made them, everyone else in the family had a stomach bug–but still).

If you don’t have apricot butter or jam, any fruit jam/puree will be delicious, though it’s better to choose one that’s on the thicker side.

These Gluten Free Cookie Bars are a great healthy dessert - made with fruit and nuts.

Recipe Notes

  • Substitute Powdered Egg Replacer if avoiding eggs (if low carb and also avoiding eggs, use a flax egg or chia egg. It won’t work as well, but is an option).
  • For a low-carb dessert, use 1/3 teaspoon stevia extract with 1 tablespoon water instead of honey, substitute xylitol for rapadura, and choose a jam made with berries and xylitol or other low-carb sweeteners.
  • It is preferable to soak and dehydrate your nuts or seeds.

Other Easy Healthy Treats

These Gluten Free Cookie Bars are a great healthy dessert - made with fruit and nuts.

Paleo Apricot Bars | Fruit and Nut Cake Bars

These Paleo Fruit Bars are a delicious easy healthy dessert. They're grain-free with sugar-free and vegan options and a yummy nut topping.
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Course: Dessert, Snack
Cuisine: Dairy-Free, Gluten-Free, Grain-Free, Keto, Low-Carb, Paleo, Vegan
Keyword: fruit and nut cake bars, paleo apricot bars, paleo fruit bars
Servings: 8 x8 pan
Calories: 404kcal

Ingredients

Crust

Fruit Layer

  • 2/3 cups apricot butter (or jam; or other thick fruit jam/puree/butter – choosing low carb if needed. See Recipe Notes)

Nut / Seed Topping

  • 3 egg whites
  • 1/2 cup rapadura (or other sweetener–see notes above0
  • 1 1/2 cups walnuts (or other nut or seed)

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).
  • Beat egg yolks until frothy, then add honey and ghee (or other fat).
  • Stir baking soda into coconut flour, then stir into wet mixture.
  • Add water, mix until combined.
  • Grease and flour a 8×8 pan. Scatter the crust mixture throughout the pan by dolloping the mixture with a spoon, then use your hands to spread and press down the dough evenly.
  • Spread the apricot butter across the dough.
  • Grind walnuts to meal.
  • Whip egg whites until stiff.
  • Add rapadura and whip, then walnut meal.
  • Spread egg white mixture over the jam on the crust, bake for 20 minutes or until darkish golden.
  • Cool before cutting into squares and enjoy!

Notes

  • Substitute Powdered Egg Replacer if avoiding eggs (if low carb and also avoiding eggs, use a flax egg or chia egg. It won’t work as well, but is an option).
  • For a low-carb dessert, use 1/3 teaspoon stevia extract with 1 tablespoon water instead of honey, substitute xylitol for rapadura, and choose a jam made with berries and xylitol or other low-carb sweeteners.
  • It is preferable to soak and dehydrate your nuts or seeds.

Nutrition

Calories: 404kcal | Carbohydrates: 12g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 38g | Saturated Fat: 10g | Cholesterol: 88mg | Sodium: 251mg | Potassium: 133mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 778IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 37mg | Iron: 1mg | Net Carbs: 8g

Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is merely an approximation. Optional ingredients are not included and when there is an alternative, the primary ingredient is typically used. We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information given for any recipe on this site. Erythritol carbs are not included in carb counts since they have been shown not to impact blood sugar. Net carbs are the total carbs minus fiber.

For another healthy dessert option, you might try:

Orange Walnut Cardamom Balls or
Mixed Halvah Treats

What different food combinations have you encountered and enjoyed or disliked?

Naomi Huzovicova - Writer at Whole New Mom

  Naomi is originally from Canada but is now a wife and mom in Slovakia. She tries to live each day as a      follower of Christ in the chaos of caring for children. Using real food and creating an environmentally friendly surrounding for her family is a priority. She dreams of a little farm while living in an apartment,  enjoys handmade creations, and still doesn’t like brussels sprouts. Naomi shares her food creations and photos of Slovakia at Almost Bananas.

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11 Comments

    1. Hello Kay,

      I have consulted with many people about putting nutritional information on my site and am still considering it. However, with all of the substitutes that I offer for special diets, it would not be feasible. Additionally, so far I have not found a source that is reliable enough. You are, of course, free to take the ingredients that you would use and plug them into whatever online source you trust. Thank you for reading and I hope you do try them.

  1. Can’t wait to try these! I have never liked sweet and savory together. My brother and I always eat our French toast with butter, salt and pepper with bacon on the side. It is delicious this way but probably foreign to people that are used to the syrup version.

    1. It’s funny how we perceive foods based on what we are used to, isn’t it? Slovaks often ask me how I can eat sweet and savoury together (pancakes and maple syrup with bacon) but eat meat with canned fruit all.the.time. French toast your way sounds good to me!

  2. These look absolutely decadent! I don’t have any coconut flour on hand at the moment, but am bookmarking this to try when I do! Thanks for sharing 🙂 ~Aubree Cherie @ Living Free

  3. Just a few important facts regarding the use of zylitol:

    The sweetener is derived from xylan (a polysaccharide), which is present in the plant cell walls of birch and beech trees, rice, oat, wheat and cotton seed hulls, corn cobs and stalks, along with sugar cane bagasse. Due to cost factors, most xylitol today is made from corn, rather than beech or birch. Chemically, all xylitol is the same, although GMOs are often present in non-organic varieties.

    Organic chemist Shane Elison explains the production process of the sweetener in “Xylitol: Should We Stop Calling it Natural?”:

    Elison continues, “[x]ylitol will rip up your insides, namely the digestive tract. It’s being touted as a natural product, most likely so that it can bypass regulation. Thus, very little studies exist on its side effects.” As anyone who has been overly enthusiastic about ingesting xylitol in large quantities can attest, the sweetener certainly lives up to its reputation of causing stomach distress, flatulence and loose stools. This alone is enough for anyone who cares about well-being to cast a weary eye upon the sweetener.

    Moreover, it’s interesting to note that polysaccharides are forbidden on a GAPS diet since the sugar encourages leaky gut syndrome. Digging a little deeper, another disturbing fact comes to light: Danisco (a worldwide supplier of xylitol) is owned by DuPont – the same corporation who concealed evidence that Teflon non-stick coating is a highly toxic carcinogen and substantially disrupts the reproductive system. Not exactly a company with a stellar track record for holding health in high regard.

    And then there’s the issue of xylitol that originates from China – a country known for its lax food standards, ranging from melamine contaminated milk to hidden GMOs. Even certified organic products from the country are suspect according to this article. Chances are, if your xylitol is from China, it’s sourced from GMO corn and has questionable processing practices.

    This is NOT a good products to use. I would advise the use of the listed rapadura over zylitol in any form or recipe.
    Here is a great source of info regarding rapadura/sucanat (which is no longer being recommended and why)

    https://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2011/08/10/a-sweet-sweet-summer-unrefined-dehydrated-whole-cane-sugar-sucanat-rapadura-panela-and-muscovado/

    1. Hi there, Carol. I appreciate your commenting.

      I know Katie of KS and in fact, we are friends and live near each other.

      About xylitol, it isn’t ideal and I only use it from birch. I would consider using it from corn that is non GMO but I haven’t done that yet. I also don’t use it much now since I am on a gut healing diet.

      The problem is that I have candida and sweeteners that feed it exacerbate my problem so I really have very few choices. I am trying to make decisions the best I can. I have done a lot of research into it and can’t figure it all out.

      I don’t know if Elison is right or not. There are folks saying it’s fine.

      I do find the Danisco information troubling but just b/c a company is fraudulent about one product doesn’t mean they are about all. I say that having a husband who lived in China for 2 years and is very hesitant to buy anything from there. That being said, not all from China is bad.

      I can’t use rapadura b/c of candida. The option for xylitol was given since so many of my readers have candida. The only “OK” sweeteners are xyl, erythritol, stevia, inulin (which doesn’t really work), lo han & yacon (in small amounts), and glycerine.

      I hope that helps you understand where I am coming from but I do really appreciate the dialogue.

      I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.

  4. These bars look delicious and the ingredients list is something I have on hand. The ingredient list is not lengthy, which is a plus, and these bars appear to go together like a breeze. All the way around a keeper!

    Thank you for posting!

    Joanne

    1. I am thrilled! It’s always so nice to hear that someone appreciates what we put out here. Hope you enjoy!