Browned Butter Applesauce Bars with Apple Walnut Streusel

This cakey bar is made with browned butter, walnuts and applesauce, then topped with apple walnut browned butter streusel. Browned Butter Applesauce Bars are the perfect fall snack!

Baking with apples cries out for brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg and fills your home with a heady aroma of autumn.   These bars turned out to be more cake than cookie so think of them as the blondie for apple eaters.  Take a big bite of fall right here!

Many years ago, when I was still a student at the University of Texas, I had an internship with the Texas Tourism Bureau.  One of my responsibilities was writing press releases about the wonders of our great state.  Information would cross my desk and I would turn it into something interesting that the wire services would, if it caught their fancy, pick up send out to newspapers to reprint.

Now this was back in the dark ages before internet so going viral meant being picked up by either AP (Associated Press) and UPI (United Press International.) I had one story that was picked up by both.

My deliberately provocative headline read: “New England Ain’t Got Nothing on Us” and it was all about the beautiful fall foliage in East Texas’s Piney Woods. Somewhere in my portfolio, I have clipped copies of the article and the furor that ensued as all of New England and other east coast states reprinted and expressed their outrage that Texas could even START to compare. Even a few west coast papers chimed in. It was great fun and my boss and I were high-fiving all over the office! Not bad for just an intern.

For naysayers and skeptics, I’m going to send you right over to TourTexas.com. See!

When I am in the US, I wouldn’t dream of sitting outside when temperatures are still in the nineties (Fahrenheit) or the mid-thirties (Celsius) but here in Dubai, after the scorching summer, this does actually feel cool.  Relatively speaking.  So I sit outside with my newspaper and a cup of coffee first thing in the morning and as I watch pendulous yellow and red dates ripen into sticky, sweet dark brown on my palm trees, I dream of the vibrantly colored leaves in colder climes. And I bake with apples.

And one morning recently we were thrilled to get a visit from a parrot. 

Browned Butter Applesauce Bars with Apple Walnut Streusel 

Ingredients
For the base:
2 cups or 250g flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 115g browned butter – follow Kayle’s instructions here and make enough for the streusel as well.
1/3 cup or 75g sugar
1/4 cup, firmly packed, or 50g brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups applesauce
1 cup or 100g chopped walnuts

For the streusel:
1 cup or 100g chopped walnuts
1 medium Granny Smith apple (about 7 oz or 200g before coring and chopping)
1/4 cup, firmly packed, or 50g brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup or 57g browned butter– follow Kayle’s instructions here and make enough for the base as well.
1/4 teaspoon salt

For drizzled glaze – optional
1/2 cup or 60g icing sugar
3-4 teaspoons milk

Method
Step one is browning your butter.  Follow the link here for full instructions and make sure you brown enough for the base AND the streusel.  Sorry to keep repeating but I don't want you to brown half a cup and then realize!

Put the browned butter for the streusel in a medium-sized bowl.  Peel and core your apple and cut it into small pieces.

Add them to the browned butter in the streusel bowl and mix well.  This will stop your apple from browning.

Add in the rest of the streusel ingredients and stir well.  Set aside.

Now we are ready to make the base.  Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and prepare a large baking pan (about 10x16in or 24x40cm) by greasing it with butter or non-stick spray.  I like to line mine first with foil, because, since I can lift it out when cool, cutting is easier.

Mix your flour, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl and set aside.

In yet another mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer, beat together the browned butter and sugars for the base.

Add in the eggs and the vanilla and beat well.

Add in the flour mixture and beat again briefly.

Using a spatula, fold in the applesauce and then the chopped walnuts.

Pour into your prepared baking pan smooth out the top with a spatula.  Make sure the batter is even all the way to the corners.

Sprinkle on the streusel topping and bake in the preheated for 25-30 minutes or until the edges pull away from the sides a little and the whole thing is a delicious golden color.

Meanwhile, measure the powdered sugar for the glaze into a small bowl and add milk one teaspoon at a time, stirring well, until the glaze is of drizzling consistency.

Remove the applesauce bars from the oven and allow to cool completely before drizzling on the glaze.  I prefer to use a piping bag for more even drizzling but you can do it with the spoon or fork.  Whatever works for you.

Just keep drizzling till it's all used up.  You can't have too much glaze. 

Now cut that applesauce bar goodness into squares.  I got 48 2in or 5cm squares.

Enjoy!

Join our hosts Laura from The Spiced Life and Rebecka from At Home with Rebecka and my other fellow Creative Cookie Exchange bakers by baking and sharing your favorite apple cookie or bar!  It’s the best way to celebrate autumn!

To join in the fun, just complete the steps below:
1. Write a blog post with cookie recipe and original photo using apples.  We would like the recipe to be one you’re making for the first time, and photos must be original.
2. Post the Creative Cookie Exchange badge somewhere on your blog so others can join in the fun.

3. Make a good faith effort to visit and comment on the other cookies in the Linky party. We all love cookies so that should be easy!
4. LIKE the Creative Cookie Exchange Facebook Page
5. FOLLOW the Creative Cookie Exchange Pinterest Board
6. LINK your blog post below using the Linky tool

You can also just use us as a great resource for cookie recipes.  Be sure to check out our Facebook page, our Pinterest Board, and our monthly posts. You will be able to find them the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month! Also, if you are looking for inspiration for this month's theme, check out what all of the hosting bloggers have made:

• Almond Apple Cider Snickerdoodles from If I Ever Owned A Bakery...
• Apple Butterscotch Cookies from Noshing With The Nolands
• Apple Walnut Cream Cheese Cookies from Magnolia Days
• Brandy Apple Bars from KarenTrina Childress
• Browned Butter Applesauce Bars from Food Lust People Love
• Caramel-Stuffed Apple Cider Spice Cookies from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Fuji Apple Cookies from NinjaBaking.com
• Ginger Sandwich Cookies with Apple Butter Cream Filling from A Baker's House
• Iced Apple Drop Cookies from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Salted Caramel Apple Popcorn Cookies from It's Yummi!
• Streusel Topped Apple Oatmeal Bars from The Spiced Life
• Butterscotch Apple Pie Cookies from At Home with Rebecka 
• Cider Snaps from Cookie Dough and Oven Mitt