Dancer-Turned-Baker Joe Bowie Shares His Recipe for Guava Crumble Bars

Joe Bowie has always loved baking. He grew up helping his mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother in the kitchen, and while a member of the Mark Morris Dance Group he became known for the homemade baked goods he brought in for co-workers. As his performance career wound down, Bowie attended the French Culinary Institute, then spent a decade teaching bread baking, developing recipes, and working at bakeries across New York City. When his husband’s career took them to South Carolina, Bowie started a community-supported bakery. But when an opportunity popped up to return to dance—this time as a teacher—he decided to bring his passions together.

“I love baking, but dancing is my home,” says Bowie. “It was time to bring the two together.” Returning to dance helped him realize how hard full-time baking had been on his body, and so in addition to his other studies, Bowie researched how to apply Alexander Technique to bakers and other restaurant workers as part of his MFA in dance. He’s now a visiting professor at Northwestern University, continuing to find ways to blend baking and art: “I’ve just turned 60, and I feel really fortunate and grateful to have come back to my body.”

Bowie isn’t currently baking professionally anymore, instead finding joy in the kitchen by baking for people he loves. These guava crumble bars, which he developed early in his baking career, are a favorite of his husband, actor Stan Brown. “I find the guava to be wonderful because it has a sort of tartness, and the crumble is sweet,” says Bowie. “They marry really, really well.”

Farmer-Ground Flours

As an artisan bread baker, Bowie seeks out locally­ grown and milled grains and farmer-ground flours. “The bran and the germ are taken out of all-purpose­ flour, and that’s where the flavor is,” he says. “If you can support local agriculture and growers, I would say do that.”

Scale Up

The ingredients in this recipe, like all of Bowie’s recipes, are measured in grams and ounces rather than cups. In order to follow recipes written this way, Bowie suggests getting a good digital scale. “It allows for a consistent bake,” he says. “If you follow what I’ve said, it’ll turn out. Volumetric measuring is risky. Everyone’s cup of flour is going to weigh a different amount. But if we are all using 100 grams of flour, it’ll always be that.”

Ingredients

• 170 grams unsalted butter
• 170 grams rolled oats
• 175 grams all-purpose flour
• 200 grams light brown sugar
• 4 grams sea salt
• 2 grams baking soda
• 14.5 ounces guava paste (Bowie suggests finding guava paste in the international aisle of any major grocery store, or in Latinx specialty stores. You can also order it from Amazon­ or another online market. “Goya makes a great version,” adds Bowie. “It’s consistently delicious.”)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Spray a 9×9-inch square pan with cooking spray, and line with two overlapping pieces of parchment paper. Parchment should hang slightly over the edges of the pan. Spray the parchment.
3. Melt the butter, and set it aside to cool slightly.
4. Combine the rolled oats, flour, light brown sugar, sea salt, and baking soda in a large bowl. Stir the mixture.
5. Add the slightly cooled melted butter to the oat mixture, and stir until it is well incorporated.
6. Press half of the crumble mixture into the bottom of the sprayed and lined pan to form an even layer.
7. Slice the block of guava paste into quarter-inch slices and place them side by side in a single layer, covering the bottom crumble layer, leaving about a quarter-inch border where just the crumble should be visible.
8. Evenly distribute the remaining half of the crumble mixture on top of the guava layer.
9. Bake the bars for 22–25 minutes, until the top layer is golden brown and slightly puffed.
10. Allow the bars to cool completely on a wire rack, then “de-pan” by pulling up on the edges of the parchment. The bars should come out easily. If they don’t, run a knife or offset spatula around the edges of the pan and try again.
11. Slice the bars into 16 pieces. (“Save any crumbs left over on the parchment,” says Bowie. “They’re good on ice cream!”)