Apple Pie Bars (Recipe)

Apple pie crumb bars with filling and some crumble over the top.

5 from 39 votes

These Apple Pie Bars are filled with apples, pears, and raisins, and topped with an oat crumble, for a fabulous dessert everyone at the table will love.

Prep Time45

Cook Time1

Chill time2

Total Time3 45

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Any

Keyword: apple bars, apple pie, apple pie bars

Servings: fruit bars

Calories: 274.6kcal

Author: Susan Pridmore

Ingredients

Crust

9 ounces all-purpose flour (2 cups)
¼ cup cornstarch
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
14 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons cream cheese
4 - 5 tablespoons ice water

Filling

4 apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced (~5 cups) Fuji, Honeycrisp, Braeburn apples are great for this recipe
3 pears peeled, cored and thinly sliced (about 3 cups)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons honey
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons Apple Pie spice
1 teaspoon lemon juice
⅛ teaspoon cornstarch (only if the filling is very soupy)
½ cup golden raisins

Crumble

1 cup oats
⅔ cup all-purpose flour
⅓ cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter

Instructions

Crust

Place the flour, cornstarch, and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Swoosh it around a few times.
Cut the butter into pieces no bigger than a tablespoon and add to the bowl along with the cream cheese. Pulse a few times until the butter is roughly pea sized.
Add the ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until the mixture begins to come together as a dough.
Spill the contents out onto a lightly floured workspace and knead the dough a few times to bring it into a solid dough. Flatten in a disk shape, wrap in wax paper, and chill for at least 2 hours, or up to 2 days.
If you decide to chill it longer than the 2 hour minimum, place the disk in a sealed plastic baggie.
Preheat the oven to 350˚F.
Roll out the dough between two sheets of wax paper until it’s large enough to fit into an 8.5” X 12” rectangular tart pan with a removable bottom.
Gentle fold the dough over the tart pan and lift each side up and tuck into the corners. Remove any excess dough and discard.
Dock the dough by pricking with the prongs of a fork a whole bunch of times, and line with foil or parchment paper. Fill with either ceramic pie weights or dried beans.
Bake for 15 - 20 minutes, and remove the pie weights and foil / parchment paper. The crust should be just starting to set. Bake for another 10 minutes until lightly browned.

Filling

Prep the apples and pears and melt the butter with the honey in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the fruit and cook until very soft, about 15 - 20 minutes.
Stir in the remaining ingredients EXCEPT the cornstarch and raisins, and simmer until for another 10 minutes until the filling thickens.
Dip an immersion blender into the filling and whirl it around 7-8 times until roughly one-third of the apples and pears are broken up.
If you don’t have an immersion blender, just remove one-third of the filling and pulse a few times in a food processor or countertop blender before returning it to the pot.
If the filling is very soupy, add the cornstarch. Don't add more than ⅛ teaspoon. You should be able to draw a line through the filling using a wooden spoon, and have the line hold for a few seconds.
Stir in the raisins and cool.

Crumble

Mix the Crumble ingredients together in a large bowl using your fingers to form a buttery crumble

Assemble

Pour the Filling over the baked tart crust. Spread the Crumble over the top.
Place the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes, or until the Crumble begins to brown. Cool for 10 minutes before removing the tart bottom from the frame. Cool an additional 15 minutes before slicing into bars, if you can wait that long.

Nutrition