If you’re only going to make one fresh peach dessert this summer, make it these easy Peach Pie Bars with an oatmeal cinnamon crumble topping. Easy to make and full of delicious fresh peaches, these are the perfect pie bars to share at picnics and parties.

We’re in the swing of peach season here in the mid-Atlantic, so of course, I can’t resist sharing a peach dessert.  If you’re going to make one peach-based dessert this year, make these peach pie bars.

I love pies, but I’m going to be honest: I love pie bars even more. (See: Raspberry Pie Bars, Cherry Pie Bars, Lemon Pie Bars, Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Pie Bars, Blackberry Pie Bars.)

It’s all the best parts of a pie: a delicious crust, a sweet fruit filling, some sort of crumb or crumble topping — but in one-handed, portable, bar form.  Pie bars also eliminate the worst, most stressful part of baking a pie: trying to cut it!

How delicious are these peach pie bars?  So delicious that even my husband, who generally is not into fruit desserts, commented on how good they were.  

The key to making these really good?  Use good quality, ripe peaches.  You know how an apple pie is still good even with kind of mediocre apples?  Under-ripened peaches don’t hide in desserts.  Wait until they’re nice and ripe – maybe even just a little overripe.

Trust me – these peach bars are worth the wait.

Ingredients and Substitutions

• All-Purpose Flour: You can also use a one-to-one swap gluten-free baking mix to keep these pie bars gluten-free)
• Rolled Oats: Use old-fashioned rolled oats, not instant or quick-cooking oats.
• Sugar
• Cinnamon
• Salt
• Butter: Unsalted butter, cold, and cut into small cubes. Keeping it cold is important!
• Peaches: Fresh peaches are so delicious here, but you can use frozen if it’s not peach season. Add the peaches straight from frozen and add 10-15 minutes to the baking time, if necessary.
• Lemon Juice: The acid is essential to help set the pectin in the peaches.
• Ground Ginger
• Powdered Sugar
• Heavy Cream

Picking a Ripe Peach

Like I mentioned above, the first step to making delicious peach pie bars is using ripe peaches.  

Unsure how to tell if a peach is ripe?  Don’t worry; I have you covered! 

A ripe peach should be very soft — not just a little soft.  Give the peach a gentle squeeze.  Does it have just a little give?  If so, set it down and walk away for another day or two.

The easiest visual way to tell if a peach is ripe is to look at the skin around the stem.  After picking off the tree, the water inside the peach starts to evaporate.  As more water evaporates, the skin starts to wrinkle, starting around the stem. 

Less water inside the peach means more concentrated delicious peach flavor.  Once the skin starts to wrinkle, you have yourself a perfect peach.

What if you’re dying to make these peach pie bars tomorrow, but the peaches aren’t ripe yet?  Let’s turn to my favorite subject, kitchen chemistry, for a great tip on how to speed up the ripening process.

Kitchen Chemistry

Peaches, like many other fruits, give off ethylene gas, a hydrocarbon gas naturally emitted during the ripening process.  As peaches release ethylene, the starch in the fruit converts to a sugar and the texture of the peach becomes softer.  More ethylene gas speeds up the ripening process, so storing peaches in a paper bag to trap the emitted ethylene will help peaches ripen faster.

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Peach Pie Bars with Fresh Peaches

These peach pie bars come together quickly and easily, making them perfect for any sort of summer gathering.  The crust can be made by hand or with a mixer, and can even be made a day or two ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator until ready to bake.

The crust contains flour, oatmeal (for a delicious crunch!), sugar, cinnamon, salt, and butter.  We’ll use cold butter here and beat or cut it into the batter for a shortbread-style crust.  (In other words, no waiting for your butter to come to room temperature first!)

A mixer is easy to use, but you can also whisk the other ingredients together by hand and cut the cold cubes of butter in with a pastry blender or two knives.

The peach filling is even easier than the crust!  We’re not even going to cook it first — everything gets baked with the raw peaches.  I don’t even bother peeling them; the skin softens so much while the peach bakes, you can’t even tell it’s there.

The topping for the bars is exactly the same as the crust; just reserve some and sprinkle it on top.  I like to finish them off with a little powdered sugar glaze, but this step is optional — I can’t blame anyone if they want to dig in and skip waiting for the glaze to harden!

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Recommended Tools to Make Peach Pie Bars

• 9-Inch Baking Dish: Use a light-colored metal pan. Metal conducts heat well and the light color helps prevent the crust from overheating and burning.
• Stand Mixer: You can use either a stand mixer or a hand mixer, but this stand mixer is my most-used appliance in the kitchen!
• Beater Blade: Any time I use the paddle attachment, I always use a Beater Blade – it scrapes down the sides of the bowl for you to ensure all your ingredients are perfectly mixed.
• Mixing Bowls: This set of glass mixing bowls stacks and is dishwasher and microwave-safe – perfection!

Tips and Tricks for the Best Peach Pie Bars

1. Make sure your peaches are ripe — for the best peach flavor, we want our peaches to be very ripe!
2. Look for the peach filling to bubble before removing it from the oven.  The filling must be hot enough to boil for the flour to thicken; listen for a sizzling sound and look for the filling to bubble up around the edges of a pan.
3. After baking, allow the bars to cool before slicing.  This ensures the filling is properly set.
4. Peach pie bars are best consumed the day they are baked.  Leftovers can be stored at room temperature or refrigerated for 2-3 days or frozen for up to 3 months.

More Fresh Peach Recipes

• Cinnamon Sugar Peach Bundt Cake
• Spicy Whiskey Peach BBQ Sauce
• Blueberry Peach Coffee Cake
• Peach French Toast Casserole
• Blackberry Peach Galette

This recipe was originally posted in August 2019 and updated with new photos and helpful tips in August 2023.