Enchanted Apple Streusel Bars

The apples in Fall are truly enchanting!! There is simply nothing that compares to the smell of apples baking in the oven, especially on a cool day. Beautiful Granny Smiths are just begging to go in the oven. 

Expensive? YES, and since we don't have our own tree I won't be doing this to many times, but they are so delicious and we shall savior the moment. 

Count yourself blessed if you have your own organic apple trees. The original recipe just called for cinnamon but I love just a few more fallish spices and upped the amount of apples for it. 

I also decided it needed the juice from one whole lemon. The recipe has quite a bit of sugar but you could cut that in half by using raw organic cane sugar. Since I was low I decided to just go with the regular granulated sugar this time.

INGREDIENTS

SWEET PASTRY 

2 c. unbleached bread flour

1/2 c. sugar 

1/2 tsp. baking powder 

1/2 tsp. sea salt 

1 c. unsalted real butter, softened (no substitutions) 

1 egg, beaten

APPLE FILLING

1/2 c. sugar

1/4 c. unbleached flour

5 Granny Smith Apples, peeled and sliced

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/8 tsp. ginger

1/8 tsp. cloves

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Juice of one whole lemon

GLAZE

2 c. confection sugar

3 tbsp. organic whole milk

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

To prepare pastry crust, mix flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a medium bowl with a whisk. Cut in butter with a pastry knife or two butter knives until nice and crumbly. Gently mix in beaten egg with your fingers, pulling it up from the bottom of the flour until it seems fairly well blended throughout the mixture while keeping it crumbly.

Lightly butter a 9X11 glass baking dish. Gently pat about 2/3 of the crumb mixture onto the bottom of the dish. Preheat oven to 350 and set aside.

To prepare apple filling, combine flour, sugar, and cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and lemon juice. Toss it together with the apples and spread them out on pastry crust. Sprinkle reserved crust mixture over apples evenly and bake in preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes. Let cool.

To prepare glaze simply combine confectioners sugar, vanilla and milk. Whisk together getting out any lumps. Drizzle on top of bars. Make sure they are cool and then slice into bars.

Happy Gardening And Happy Baking!!

Pammy