My mom used to make these pineapple bars when I was a kid. For many years now I’ve been thinking I need to make these vegan and gluten free but kept forgetting to ask her for the recipe. She gave me a recipe that was really a mixture of two different recipes and I set about making her version gluten-free and vegan.
I have to say, we were really pleased with the results. I even sampled these to our employees and they raved on about them. Not bad for gluten-free and vegan, right? Another person fooled!
This is a simple, no-fuss, no-muss dessert bar that comes together in really little time. Because, who has time for a complicated recipe these days. Certainly not I. In fact, I made these with little Jonas strapped to me in the carrier. (Don’t worry I set him down while I cooked the filling and put the bars into the hot oven.) Side note: I am going to write a whole other post about my carrier and how much I love it later. Seriously. I get so much of real life done because of my carrier.
There’s really not much to say about this recipe other than that it is delicious. There aren’t really any unique ingredients (bonus!) and you can use pretty much any gluten-free flour blend or just brown rice flour, and I feel pretty confident that the recipe would work just fine.
The one thing to make sure you do is definitely cut the bars straight out of the oven while still warm and then leave the cut bars in the pan to cool completely. If you let the whole slab cool without cutting first you may find the bottom crust hardens up too much to cut nicely afterward. Having a hard bottom crust is good because it’s not crumbly and fall-apart-y. But, it does make it hard to cut later so do the cutting while it’s still warm, like the instructions say.
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour blend (*see notes)
- ½ cup vegan margarine
- 1½ cups shredded unsweetened coconut
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- ¾ cup organic cane sugar
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice**
- 1 x 14 oz. can of crushed pineapple with juice
- 1 tablespoon vegan margarine
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 9x9 baking dish.
- Mix brown sugar, gluten-free flour, first amount of vegan margarine (1/2 cup) and coconut together in a bowl until crumbly.
- Press about ⅔ of the mixture firmly into the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Reserve the remaining ⅓ of the mixture for topping.
- Combine the organic cane sugar, lemon juice, crushed pineapple with juice, second amount of vegan margarine (1 tablespoon) and cornstarch in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly so as not to scorch.
- Cook until mixture has thickened. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.
- Spread the cooked pineapple mixture gently over the pressed base.
- Cover evenly with the remaining ⅓ of the crumb mixture and press down gently with your hand.
- Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, until nice and golden brown.
- Remove from oven and cut into squares while still warm. Let cool completely before removing squares from pan and serving.
Have you ever covered the top of these with drizzled chocolate? Just wondering. Would it be a nice compliment to the coconut and pineapple or not really? I’m thinking about making these tomorrow. Just discovered your lovely site.
I’m not sure how I feel about pineapple and chocolate. Like, at a chocolate fondue fountain would I spear some pineapple chunks and enrobe it in chocolate? Maybe not. But I’m also the kind of person who would put chocolate on just about anything, so it’s a toss up. These are quite sweet as it is, so maybe chocolate might be too much. Then again, chocolate anything!
I’m not helping the decision am I? 😉
Thanks for your prompt reply. I know, I’m not sure about it either. Might be fabulous! I think I’ll make them as is and after cutting and removal from pan I’ll drizzle a few with melted chocolate and give them a taste test. I’ll let you know the result as soon as I make them.
Thank you again.
Thank you for this wonderful treat. The second time is being refrigerated at this moment. I love the taste of pineapple and coconut 🙂 I am using only white sugar (not brown nor cane) and instead of margarine I’m using 80% of what is written in coconut oil. Any suggestion on how to make it less falling apart crumbly yummy cookies?
I find sometimes using coconut oil has this tendency. I don’t know for sure without testing it, but my first thought would be to increase the coconut oil to match the amount the recipe calls for in margarine. No guarantee though.
To much sugar
Can I use regular white flour? If so, does the amount change?
Most definitely you can substitute regular flour for the gluten free flour in this recipe.
Go ahead and use regular white flour – the same amount. Enjoy!
This turned out great! I cut the sugar in the crust in half and the sugar in the filling by 1/3. So delicious! This goes into regular rotation.
Glad to hear it is a success with less sugar too!
I cut the sugar as above also and the recipe was delicious!!! Thank you..
I baked mine for 45 and it was still soft…not sure what I did wrong. Any suggestions?
Sorry I haven’t gotten around to responding much sooner. Did you make any changes to the recipe ingredients? If you followed the recipe exactly, I’m not sure what could cause the issue you’re having. Except maybe oven temperature isn’t accurate? Hopefully you still enjoyed them.
I made these and used tapioca starch instead of corn starch and added a 1/3 cup of evaporated coconut milk. I also mixed in a half cup of vegan white chocolate chips (cocoa butter chips) in the toppings. It was perfect and amazing ?
Yum!!! Sounds amazing! Thanks for sharing.
These were easy and delicious. Will be great for summer and might try adding some cherries and rum for a pina colada twist. Was very worried because I forgot to cut them while they were warm but had no problem cutting them after they had cooled.
YUM! Glad you were able to cut them after they cooled. I just made these again a few weeks back and also forgot to cut them while warm … they were fine too. I can’t quite remember why that advice seemed so important when I wrote the original post all those years ago. Haha.
Just tried these. Great flavor, but way too sweet for me, even with cutting sugar. I’ll cut more and add more lemon juice next time. I also put a little cinnamon in the crust. Why not? lol This a simple recipe and quick to put together. My husband grated fresh coconut for this. Coconuts are reasonably priced and we got several cups of shredded coconut! Thanks for the recipe!
Fresh coconut! Wow that sounds amazing Julie. Love that you added cinnamon too. Why not indeed! And yes, this is definitely a very sweet, decadent treat. I cut these into much smaller squares and enjoy a little taste. This is a recipe I make for potlucks so I don’t eat the whole pan myself!
Is the margarine mixed in or cut into flour mixture?
This is a pretty no-fuss recipe. I use my hands to mix into a crumbly mixture.