Salted Caramel Apple Pie Bars

As soon as I stumbled upon these bars from Sally’s Baking Addiction I knew I had to recreate them at home. I’m still bogged down with pounds and pounds of apples from our apple picking adventure the other weekend so really, anything and everything with apples is fair game these days. I made them as written the first time (after making three attempts for the salted caramel sauce, more info below) and while they were delicious, I wanted to make them again but use a different shortbread recipe. I’m sharing my adaptation of Sally’s recipe below — along with some advice for the caramel portion of the recipe. Enjoy these decadent salted caramel apple pie bars, everyone! They’re sure to be a hit.

Recipe here, and more information after the jump. I’ve been on the internet long enough to know that the most common gripe with food blogs is that the blogger rambles on for too long before sharing the recipe. But if you happen to enjoy rambles, there will be some below!

Salted Caramel Apple Pie Bars

Craving the goodness of apple pie but don't want to make one? Try these salted caramel apple pie bars instead!

5 from 1 vote

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Course Dessert

Servings 12 bars

Ingredients

  

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Shortbread Crust

• 1/4 cup (22g) old-fashioned oats ground up in blender or coffee grinder
• 3/4 cups (90g) all-purpose flour
• ⅛ cup (14g) cornstarch
• ⅓ cup (42g) confectioner’s sugar
• 1/4 tsp (1.5g) table salt
• 7 tbsp (98g) unsalted butter softened
• 1/4 tsp (1.5g) vanilla

Apple Pie Filling

• 2 large apples, one sweet, one tart (I used Honeycrisp and Crimson Crisp) peeled and thinly sliced (1/4 inch thick)
• 2 tbsp (15g) all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp (27g)dark brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon (3g) ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp (1g) ground ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon (.5g) ground nutmeg
• ⅛ tsp (.5g) ground cloves

Streusel

• 1/2 cup (40g) old-fashioned oats
• 1/3 cup (70g) packed light or dark brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon (2g) ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup (30g) all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup (60g) unsalted butter melted

Salted Caramel Sauce

• ½ cup (118g) water
• 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
• 1 cup (240g) heavy cream
• ¼-½ tsp (1.5g-2.5g) table salt
• ½ tsp (2.5g) vanilla extract
• ½ tsp (2.5g) juice from 1 lemon

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 300°F (149°C). Spray the sides and bottom of an 8×8 inch square baking pan with cooking spray, then set aside. Alternatively, you can line the baking pan with parchment paper but I always get too frustrated with trying to push down the corners so I scrapped that here.

Make the shortbread:

• In a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream softened butter with vanilla and confectioner’s sugar on low speed until combined. Gradually add the flour, oat flour, cornstarch, and salt, mixing until you have a nice looking dough — about 3 minutes depending on your mixer. Press the mixture into your square baking pan and bake for 15 minutes. While that is baking, prepare apples and streusel. Remove from oven and set aside.

Make the apple pie filling:

• Mix the sliced apples, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg together in a large bowl until all of the apples are evenly coated. Set aside. You’re going to wait for the apples to release some of their moisture and strain that off so the bars don’t get soggy.

Make the streusel:

• Stir the melted butter, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and flour together in a medium bowl. Mix until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs, using your hands towards the end to really mix it all together. Set aside.
• Turn the oven up to 350°F to preheat. Arrange apple mixture on top of shortbread crust, pressing them down to fit. If you think you have too many, don’t feel like you need to use them all! You can save some for making oatmeal or mini turnovers or something fun.
• Sprinkle the apple layer with streusel, pressing down lightly to make sure they’re all touching the apples. Bake for 30 minutes, checking to make sure streusel is golden.
• Remove from oven, cool for 20 minutes, then chill in fridge for a few hours. This will make it easier to cut into bars when you serve them.

Make the salted caramel sauce:

• While the bars are chilling, it’s caramel time.
• Place water in a medium saucepan, then ppur the sugar into the center of the pan, making sure it doesn’t touch the sides. Cover, bring to a boil over high, and once boiling, uncover the pan and continue boiling until syrup registers 300 degrees on a digital thermometer. This takes around 7-8 minutes.
• Reduce heat to medium, and continue to cook until syrup is deep amber and registers at 350 degrees, roughly 1-2 minutes. Watch your caramel LIKE A HAWK during this time.
• While waiting for 1-2 minutes, bring the cream and salt to a simmer in a small saucepan on high heat.
• Remove the pan with the sugar syrup from heat and very carefully pour ½ of the hot cream into it. It will bubble vigorously, so be careful! Let bubbling subside, then add remaining cream, vanilla, and lemon juice, whisking cocntinuously until caramel is smooth.
• Cool and refrigerate, as caramel will thicken up a bit as it cools. You’ll have leftovers, so save those bad boys in an airtight container for up to two weeks!
• Cut into 16 or 12 bars. Drizzle salted caramel sauce on top of each bar when serving.

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

If you made it through the full salted caramel apple pie bars recipe and you’re still here, then huzzah! It’s a long one, but I promise it’s not that complicated. The hardest part, for me, was the salted caramel sauce because caramel is a tricky business in general, and even more so when you don’t make it often. Which I don’t, because hello, I cannot have endless amounts of caramel sauce in the house — I have some degree of willpower, but I’m only human! I’d put it on anything and everything.

I initially made these bars, along with some Sourdough Apple Fritters, for the team of roofers that was working at our house recently. The first batch was delicious, but the shortbread recipe didn’t do it for me. Mine came out a little thin and didn’t seem sturdy enough to support the apple filling and streusel. It was crumbly-bumbly, as I like to say.

So I set out to find a sturdy, delicious shortbread — sweet, buttery, and with a nice brown crumb. The final result was truly decadent. You’ll only be able to eat one of these in a sitting because they’re rich as heck! But oh so worth it.

So if you’re like, “Heck yes, I’m making this recipe. But why did you use XYZ ingredient???” I have a few notes about the recipe:

• Lemon juice in caramel sauce is used to help prevent the sugar from crystallizing. For a more complicated explanation, check out this link.
• Caramel sauce is notoriously difficult, and I tried three methods for this salted caramel sauce. The final version was from my kitchen bible, America’s Test Kitchen cookbook! Their method involved cooking the sugar with some water in a covered pot to trap moisture, ensuring that the sugar dissolves properly. 
• Oats in the shortbread – this is a tip from the ATK cookbook to curb gluten development in the shortbread, which happens when gluten (the protein in flour) combines with moisture, in this case from the butter. Cornstarch is then used to supplement the oat flour. The result is a crisp, flavorful shortbread!

If this is your first time making caramel, mental fortitude is important. I have trust issues with caramel and never truly believe it’s going to work, but I really like this way of making the sauce. Please let me know if it works for you — sometimes I think if you look at caramel the wrong way that it’ll burn, so be patient and persistent. It took me three tries! But I swore I would not be defeated by sugar syrup. No way, no how.

Happy fall baking, everyone!