I have been obsessed with all things lemon these days. I just love the way it freshens a dish up. Lemon works great in sweet or savory dishes. I am a huge fan of lemon bars and wanted to make something similar. These coconut lemon bars are so good! Vegan and gluten free. The coconut and lemon just go so well together. These coconut lemon bars didn’t even last the weekend at our house. My husband ate them all!
If you enjoy lemon flavored desserts, you may also enjoy my Lemony Cookie Dough Bites or my Lemon Larabar Bites.
Coconut Lemon Bars
Ingredients
For the bars
- 1 1/2 cups gluten free oat flour
- 1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 2 eggs (I used a flax egg replacement )
- 1/2 cup coconut sugar
- 1/2 cup coconut oil (room temperature)
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp ground vanilla beans or vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp lemon zest
For the filling
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 1/2 cup coconut butter
- 2 T maple syrup
- 1/2 T chia seeds
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- In one bowl, cream together the coconut sugar, eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and coconut oil.
- In another bowl, mix the shredded coconut, oat flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet.
- To make the filling, mix the coconut butter, lemon juice and maple syrup in a blender or food processor . Stir in the chia seeds. Set aside for a minute so the mixture can thicken.
- Line an 8x8 baking dish with parchment paper. Leave enough paper to stick out the sides.
- Gently press 1/2 of the dough in the bottom of the pan. The dough will be sticky. Sometimes using a wet spatula helps spread it easier.
- Spread the lemon mixture on top of the dough. Once the lemon is all spread, top it off with the remaining dough. I added the top layer in clumps, so it resembled more of a crumble.
- Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes.
- Once the pan has completely cooled, lift the mixture out and cut into bars using a pizza cutter.
Recipe Notes
A few things to note about this recipe. When you cut the bars, they will seem crumbly. If you place them in the fridge after baking, they firm up quite nicely. You could even put them in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up before you cut them. They are supposed to be like crumb bars, so they will crumble a little. We ate ours with a fork. I promise they are so good!
16 thoughts to “Coconut Lemon Crumb Bars”