This salted caramel apple streusel bar recipe takes roughly 45 minutes to make and need 2 hours to chill before the caramel drizzle step. It serves 8-10 people depending how big you cut the bars.
Serve the bars warm or cold and they pair well with vanilla bean ice cream with whip cream topping.
Ingredients
- Shortbread Crust
- 1/2 cup melted unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1 cup flour
- Filling
- 2 large red apples
- 2 tbsp flour
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- Streusel Topping
- 1/2 cup old fashioned oats
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1/4 unsalted butter
- Salted caramel sauce
Recipe
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
- Make the Shortbread Crust
- Stir butter, vanilla, salt, and sugar together in a medium bowl.
- Add flour and stir until combined.
- Line a 9×9 baking pan with parchment paper and make sure a little hangs over the sides. (Note: if you don’t have parchment paper, spray your pan really good. It will be tough at first to get your bars out without the paper so you’ll need to get in there good with a spatula to get them out.)
- Press crust mixture evenly throughout the pan.
- Bake for 15 minutes and set aside once finished.
- Make the Filling
- Slice apples thinly and add to a medium sized bowl.
- Add the cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar. Whisk until combined.
- Set aside and begin to make the topping.
- Make the Topping
- In a separate medium bowl than your filling mixture, whisk together the brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, and oats. Add chilled (or room temp) butter and mix together until it forms small crumbles. You can do this with forks, a blender, or your hands.
- Turn oven to 350 degrees.
- In your baked crust pan, add the filling. Press the apples down as needed into the crust and spread evenly throughout the pan. Then, add the streusel topping.
- Bake for 32-35 minutes. The top should be golden brown when you take it out of the oven.
- Once it’s done baking, set the pan aside for 20 minutes before you begin the refrigeration process.
- After 20 minutes, chill the pan in the refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours.
- After it’s chilled, add your salted caramel sauce. It’s ok if you don’t have actual salted caramel sauce. In that case, drizzle the sauce across the top to your liking and lightly sprinkle sea salt over the bars.
