Apple Pie Bars

Course Dessert

Cuisine American, Southern

Keyword apple-bars, apple-pie-bars-recipe, easy-apple-pie-recipes

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 1

Cooling time 30

Total Time 1 50

Servings servings

Calories 471kcal

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line an 8x8-inch baking pan with parchment paper.
Crust: In a large bowl, whisk together flour and sugar. Use a hand mixer on low or a large silicone spatula to mix in the softened butter until a soft dough forms. Press evenly onto the bottom of the pan. Place into the oven and bake for 20 minutes.
Apple Filling: Meanwhile, In the same bowl, toss together apple slices with lemon juice. Next, coat with flour, granulated sugar, apple pie spice, ground cinnamon and salt until the apples are evenly coated.
Topping: In a separate medium size bowl toss together flour, oats, granulated sugar, light brown sugar, and salt with melted butter.
Remove crust from oven and arrange apple pie filling evenly over the crust. Sprinkle with the streusel topping.
Place pan back into the oven and bake for 40-50 minutes or until lightly golden brown and the apples are fork tender.
Cool in the pan on a cooling rack for at least 2 hours or chill in the fridge to speed up the process.
Cut into squares and serve drizzled with salted caramel sauce, if desired.

Nuts: You can add 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts to the crumb topping mixture.

Caramel Sauce: You can serve these apple bars as is or drizzled with salted caramel sauce.

Alternate Glaze: You may like to drizzle these bars with a creamy glaze. Mix together powdered sugar with heavy cream and vanilla extract and drizzle over the cooled bars.

Apple Substitutions: You can use pink lady, braeburn, gala or honeycrisp apples in place of granny smith apples.

Apple Pie Spice: If you don't have apple pie spice on hand, in addition to the cinnamon called for in the recipe add one teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon cardamom and 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger to the pie filling.

Lemon Juice: If you prefer you can toss the apple slices with vanilla extract in place of lemon juice.