Apple Crisp Bars With Pecan, Cream-Cheese Filling
No need to be ashamed of your growing pile of CSA apples towards winter’s end. We all have a little stack hidden somewhere. While yes, our California winters are squeezed into a teeny, tiny timeframe, that’s no excuse for not being able to cozy up in January with some tasty apple crisp. Those sweet red beauties won’t stay around for long! Why not celebrate their season’s end with a warm hoorah of delicious crispy baking?
Ingredients
-2 sticks of unsalted butter
-5 CSA farm apples, chopped in cubes (mix and match, pink lady/black arkansas/fuji!)
-1/3 cup + 2 tbs brown sugar
-3 cups of oats (or more if you’d like a thicker base crust!)
-1 & 1/4 cup of flour
-2 tsp cinnamon
-1 cup pecans, roughly chopped
-½ cup shredded coconut
-½ cup maple syrup
-4oz of cream cheese (half of your usual 8oz pack)
Instructions
1. First, make sure to preheat the oven to 350 and line a 13x9 baking pan with parchment paper. The paper really helps keep the bottom crust together in one piece-way easier for cutting the bars!
2. In a deep pan, heat 14 tbs butter (leave the other 2 tbs on the side) over medium heat just until it turns brown. The butter will melt and foam for about 8-10 minutes until it turns brown. When it does, pour into a mixing bowl and set aside.
3. Use the same butter pan and melt the remaining 2 tbs of butter, mixing the apples, 2 tbs brown sugar, and 1 tsp cinnamon all together. Heat on low and stir occasionally for 10 minutes as the apples begin to caramelize. Then remove from heat.
4. While the apples are cooking, mix the following ingredients in the same mixing bowl holding your browned butter: remaining brown sugar, oats, flour, remaining cinnamon, baking soda, pecans, coconut, and maple syrup. Mix everything together and press all but 1 cup of the mixture into the bottom of your 9x13 pan. Save the one cup to crumble on top.
5. Thinly slice your cream cheese and evenly place on top of the crust’s base layer. Then, spread apple mixture. Crumble the remaining cup of crispy goodness on top of the apples and bake for 35 minutes or until the top of the bars are golden brown. After they cool for 10 minutes, slice and serve plane or, if you’re feeling extra sweet, try with vanilla ice cream or greek yogurt!
