Apple Crumble Bars
Ingredients
Apple filling:
- 2 lbs apples 4 medium-ish apples, (peeled, cored, finely diced)
- 2 tbs cornstarch
- 1/4 cups brown sugar
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
Crumble
- 2 cups old fashioned oats
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 cup butter melted
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- APPLES: In a bowl, toss together all the ingredients for the apples; set aside. Line a 12×9.5 pan with parchment paper; set aside.
- CRUMBLE: Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350ºF. Mix the oats, flour, sugars, baking powder, and ground cinnamon together in a large bowl. Pour in the melted butter and stir to combine until you form a sand-like crumb. Press two-thirds of the prepared crumb mixture into the prepared pan. You want to make sure the crust is tightly packed in.
- BAKE: Top with the cooled apple mixture and sprinkle the remaining crumb mixture on top. Bake for 50-60 minutes. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack for one hour. I usually stick mine in the refrigerator for a bit after that to cool them down completely before cutting into pieces.
Notes
Apple Crumble Bars
Notes:
If you don’t have salted butter, add ½ teaspoon of salt to the crumble mixture. I prefer these bars in a 12×9.5 pan because they are thicker that way and personally, I like the crust to apple ratio a lot here. But you can also bake these in a 13×9 pan, just be sure to check around the 45-50 minute mark as a larger pan will mean they will cook slightly faster.
It’s important to note that this recipe calls for rolled oats (sometimes called, old-fashioned or even whole oats) and not quick cooking oats. Quick cooking oats, unfortunately, aren’t a good substitute because as the name suggests, they cook much quicker than old-fashioned oats and would require a different ratio of butter, sugar, etc. For best results, I recommend rolled oats here.
Tips for success when you make apple crumble bars:
- Here (affiliate link) is the baking pan I used. It’s a 12X9.5 rectangle pan so the bars are thicker than what they’d be if you used a traditional 13×9. You can make the same thing in a 13×9 pan but keep in mind that the bars will be slightly thinner and you’ll need to decrease the baking time.
- Be sure to really pack in the crust. You don’t want the bottom to crumble (quite literally)
- When you make your apple mixture, if there’s any water or liquid at the bottom of the bowl, use a slotted spoon to transfer the apples.
- Sometimes, I like to replace the vanilla extract (affiliate link) with vanilla bean paste (affiliate link) that way you get specks of vanilla throughout the apple filling — heavenly!
- Let the apple crumble bars cool completely before trying to remove them from the baking pan. At least an hour, longer if you can. Once they’ve cooled for an hour, I usually stick them in the refrigerator and let them cool completely, and it makes it so much easier to slice them that way.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!