Lovely Guest: Melanie Tannenbaum

Hello lovely lovelies!

Amidst all of the holiday gift-giving madness, I’m here to talk about one of MY personal favorite things about the holidays – FOOD! Everyone loves food. Specifically, everyone loves sweet, delicious, dessert-type food. As a baked-goods lover AND a graduate student who is too broke/cheap to pay more than $20 a week for groceries, I’m always on the lookout for tasty treats that a) are not too time-consuming, b) are easy to make, and c) use cheap, easily-available ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen. With that, I present to you…Apple Pie Bars!

Now, as a warning, when you tell people you are making Apple Pie Bars you will be greeted with many a confused look. “Apple pie…bars?” They will be skeptical. Just smile and nod, and wait for the bars to speak for themselves. I have now made them twice – once for a friend’s Halloween party and once for my family’s Thanksgiving dinner – and each time they’ve been met with CRAZY rave reviews and people begging me for the recipe. I also must give credit where credit is due – this clearly was not out of my own imagination; it came from www.allrecipes.com. So, without further ado – here it is!

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, chilled
• 1 egg yolk
• 2/3 cup milk

• 1 cup crushed cornflakes cereal
• 8 cups thinly sliced apples
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 egg white
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour and salt. Cut in the 1 cup butter until mixture is mealy. With a fork, stir in the 2/3 cup milk and egg yolk. Divide dough into 2 equal parts. On a lightly floured surface, roll out 1 piece of dough into a large rectangle. Place on the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking pan.

3. Sprinkle cereal over the crust, then layer the apples over the cereal. Stir together the 1 cup of white sugar, and the 1and 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon and nutmeg; sprinkle over the apple layer. Roll out the other half of the dough and cover everything in the pan. Brush top crust with the reserved egg white and sprinkle with a mixture of 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.

4. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour in the preheated oven. Top crust should be lightly browned. Mix together the 1 cup of confectioners' sugar, 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of milk, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla until smooth; drizzle over bars while they are still warm.

Lovely Sidenotes:

• I love cinnamon, so I usually use a bit more than they suggest, but just add however much feels right to you
• I typically use 2 red apples and 2 green; I peeled them the first time, but the second I didn’t, and I actually liked it better.

Happy baking!

After graduating from Duke in May, Melanie moved out to the cornfields to start working on her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at the University of Illinois. When she's not studying persuasion, behavior change, and HIV prevention, she's obsessing over her two precious kittens, doing yoga, trying to teach herself how to cook, attempting to train for a half-marathon, or (of course!) reading posts by her favorite two Lovelies.