A mix between cake, blondies, streusel, and crumble, these apple crumble bars are the perfect unique fall treat. Pieces of maple cinnamon apples are suspended in the softest cakey brown butter blondie batter; it’s more structed than cake, so you can eat them with your hands, but it’s not as dense or chewy as a blondie. These apple crumble bars are topped with an brown sugar maple oat streusel that really gives them the vibe of fall treat.
Not Your Average Apple Pie Bar
Most apple pie bar or apple crumble bar recipes have a shortbread base layered with cooked or sugared apples, which then might be topped with a streusel or crumble. These bars have a consistency somewhere between cake and a blondie; they are soft and tender and the apple pieces are mixed throughout the batter, which is topped with the streusel. If you are, however, looking for a festive fall blondie, try out my cranberry blondie bars with a white chocolate fudge topping.
Making this apple bars recipe couldn’t be easier; the brown butter batter is mixed together with just a few other wet ingredients the addition of oat and all-purpose flour, and then the apples are folded in. The crumble comes together in one bowl with just oats, brown sugar, maple syrup, flour, and more brown butter. Everything is baked together in one square baking pan.
Bake Notes
- It’s up to you whether to peel the apples or not. I don’t mind keeping the skin on, but if you’d rather remove it, that’s fine!
- The recipe calls for two sticks of butter total—one in the streusel and one in the batter. You’ll brown both sticks together to save time and then divide the melted and browned butter evenly into two bowls—one for the streusel and one for the batter. Make sure that when you pour the butter into the bowls, it’s mixed together well so that the brown specks are floating throughout the butter and are poured into the bowls evenly. They settle at the bottom, so if you divide the butter without mixing it first, the first bowl you pour the butter into won’t get too many of the brown specks, which is what gives the brown butter its flavor. If it still looks like one bowl has more brown specks than the other after diving the butter evenly, just scoop some out of one and add them to the other bowl.
Apple Crumble Cake Bars Recipe
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 16 bars 1x
Description
This apple bar recipe is a mix between apple pie, cake, blondies, and streusel. A soft batter suspends pieces of maple cinnamon apples, and it’s topped with a brown sugar maple oat crumb topping.
Ingredients
For the Oat Streusel Topping
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup oats
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1/4 tsp salt
For the Bars
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup oat flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 apples, peeled if you prefer
Instructions
Brown Both Sticks of Butter
- Add two sticks of unsalted butter to a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir until the butter is fully melted. Continue to stir, scraping the bottom of the pot frequently, as the mixture starts to bubble and spit for a few minutes, then foam as darkened bits appear near the bottom of the pot. Once the mixture turns an amber brown color and smells like caramel, remove it from the heat and pour it evenly into two small bowls.
Make the Streusel
- In a medium mixing bowl mixing bowl, add one of the melted and browned sticks of butter (one of the two bowls you’ve just poured the butter into; keep the other set aside).
- Add 1/3 cup brown sugar, 2 tbsp maple syrup, and 1/4 tsp salt. Whisk to combine.
- Add 1 cup all-purpose flour and 1/3 cup oats to the mixture and stir it all together. Use your hands to squeeze handfuls of the mixture together so that clumps form; it should look like a crumble topping. Set aside.
Make the Batter
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease an 8×8 baking pan with butter and line it with parchment paper.
- Chop your apples into small pieces.
- To a large mixing bowl, add the remaining stick of melted and browned butter.
- To the butter, add 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup white sugar. Whisk to combine.
- Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk again to combine.
- Add the oat flour and all-purpose flour, salt, and baking powder, and use a spatula to gently fold the mixture together. Overmixing the flour can cause more gluten to develop in the flour, which can make the bars turn out tough rather than tender, so be gentle when incorporating the flour.
- Add the chopped apples and fold them into the batter.
- Spread the batter into the prepared baking pan. Sprinkle the crumble mixture evenly over the top of the batter.
- Bake for 30-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Prep Time: 20
- Cook Time: 40