Apple Bars

My family loves to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, and the list goes on. My sister in law had a birthday last week; it was one of the big ones. It was the big five oh. Yeah she turned 50, which meant that we had to plan a party for her.

Now don't get me wrong I love these family get togethers; they are a ton of fun. We get together for the day and visit and eat. What could be more fun?

While we were planning my sister in law's party we decided to bring her favorites. Of course we had birthday cake. My oldest sister always makes the birthday cakes, her cakes are always wonderful. We decided to bring some bars along with the cake.

So I offered to make my apple bars. My sister in law loves these bars and often will request that I make them when we are having a gathering. These apple bars are made in a jelly roll pans so they make a lot of bars. Yes, they are a little time consuming, but I think they are well worth the time to make.

These are very tasty from the buttery pastry to the apples. The cinnamon can be smelled throughout the house while they are baking. I like to use Macintosh apples; I think they bake up very well in these bars.

Recipe:

Apple Bars
Ingredients for the crust:
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups butter
3/4 cup of milk
1 egg

Mix the flour and the salt together. Cut in butter as you would for a pie crust and then add the milk and the beaten egg. Divide the dough into 2 equal balls. Roll out on heavy floured surface as the dough will be rich, to the size of the jelly roll pan.
Spread the rolled dough out onto the jelly roll pan.

Prepare the apples for the filling.

5 lbs of apples (I like to use Macintosh) thinly sliced.
1 heaping cup of sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 heaping tablespoons of flour

Mix the above ingredients together and spread over the dough in the jelly roll pan. Place the other rolled out ball of dough over the apples and press the edges together. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes in a 375 degree oven.

Icing: I just mix up a powder sugar icing, I really don't measure the ingredients for this. So I will guess at about what I use.

About 1/2 cup of powder sugar
1/4 teaspoon of butter
1 dash salt
Enough milk or warm water to make a thin consistency

You will want your icing to be quite runny so that you can drizzle it over the bars. I like to drizzle the icing over the bars immediately after they come out of the oven.

Oh by the way we did have other things besides dessert. We did bring healthy things to eat as well; such a vegetables and fresh fruit ....

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