More Recipes You'll Love
These paleo peach squares stack three layers of texture — a pressed almond-flour crust, a thick jammy peach filling, and a crunchy streusel of clumped dough and sliced almonds. Frozen peaches are the smart shortcut here: they're already soft, and once thawed and drained they cook down with peach jam into a concentrated filling in just ten minutes. One 13×9 pan makes twenty-four squares, which sounds like a lot until the pan comes back empty.
Pro Tips
- Thaw the frozen peaches completely and drain them well before pulsing — extra liquid is the difference between jammy squares and a soggy crust.
- Cook the peach and jam mixture the full ten minutes over high heat until it's thick and jam-like; it won't thicken much more in the oven.
- Reserve the ½ cup of flour mixture for the streusel before pressing the rest into the pan, and pinch it with your fingers into hazelnut-sized clumps with the extra tablespoon of palm sugar — uniform crumbs sink, big clumps stay crunchy.
- Spread the peach filling over the crust while the crust is still hot out of the oven so the layers bond and don't slide apart when cut.
- Let the bars cool in the pan for a full two hours before lifting the foil sling and cutting; the filling sets as it cools.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use fresh peaches instead of frozen?
Yes — use about 1½ pounds of ripe fresh peaches, chopped. Because fresh fruit releases more juice, give the skillet an extra minute or two to cook the filling down to jam thickness.
Can I substitute the peach jam?
Any fruit jam works in equal measure. Apricot jam is a natural pairing with the lemon zest stirred in at the end of cooking.
How far ahead can I make peach squares?
They're best the day they're baked, when the streusel is crunchiest, but they hold well covered for a couple of days. The topping softens slightly overnight without hurting the flavor.
Why do the edges of my streusel burn before the middle browns?
Rotate the pan halfway through the final 20-minute bake. Almond slices go from golden to burnt quickly at the corners of a 13×9 pan.
Recipe Card
Ingredients
Method
- 1.
- Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 375°F.
- Line a 13x9 baking pan with a foil sling. Make foil sling by folding two long sheets of aluminum foil; the first sheet should be thirteen inches wide and the second sheet should be nine inches wide. Lay sheets of foil in pan perpendicular to each other, with extra foil hanging over edges of pan. Push foil into corners and up sides of pan, smoothing foil flush to pan.
- Grease with coconut oil.
- 2. Process the flour, 1¼ cups of the almonds, ⅓ cup of the palm sugar, and ½ teaspoon salt together in a food processor until combined (about 5 seconds).
- Add the coconut oil and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal, with a few pea-sized pieces of coconut oil (about 20 pulses).
- 3.
- Reserve ½ cup of the flour mixture for the topping.
- Sprinkle the remaining flour mixture into the prepared pan and press into an even layer with the bottom of a measuring cup.
- Bake the crust until fragrant and golden brown (about 15 minutes).
- 4.
- While the crust bakes, mix the remaining tablespoon of palm sugar and the reserved flour mixture together in a small bowl and pinch the mixture between your fingers into hazelnut-sized clumps of streusel.
- 5. Pulse the peaches and jam together in a food processor until the peaches are roughly quarter-inch chunks (5 to 7 pulses).
- Cook the peach mixture in a large nonstick skillet over high heat until it is thickened and jam-like (10 minutes).
- Remove from heat and stir in lemon zest, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt.
- 6.
- Spread the cooked peach mixture evenly over the hot crust and sprinkle with the streusel topping and remaining ½ cup of almonds.
- Bake until almonds are golden brown (about 20 minutes), rotating the pan halfway through baking.
- 7.
- Place the pan atop a wire rack and let the bars cool completely (about two hours).
- Remove the bars from the pan using the foil, cut into squares, and serve.
