The best feeling in the world is when you create something and it turns out to be 10 times better than you thought it would. This past week I made Apple Cinnamon Crumble Oat Bars with a Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze made with the basics that was in my fridge and pantry. The inspiration came when I noticed my bag of apples was going bad leaving me with 2 apples to last a week. With the need for social distancing, I’m trying my best to stretch my groceries as much as possible so I decided to bake the apples and improvise with what I had and jazzed things up a bit with a cream cheese glaze.
I referred to my Raspberry Chia Jam Oat Breakfast bars recipe for inspiration and tweaked a majority of the recipe and surprisingly it came out better than I thought it would. The recipe below is the proper way of making these bars, but if you’re in a pinch like I was, these are the alternatives I made that might be useful:
- Coconut sugar in place of brown sugar
- Coconut Oil and Olive Oil in place of butter for the bars (I did a mix of both because I was low on both)
- Self Rising flour in place of All-purpose flour and baking powder.
- Blended Turbinado Sugar in place of Confectionary Sugar (I used the flour option on my blender to get a powdered texture.)
- Whipped cream cheese instead of block cream cheese. (Used 3 spoonfuls to make a mini-batch of glaze in the blender.)
Despite all these alternatives, the bars came out decadently sweet, stored well and lasted the week. Check out the recipe below:
Apple Cinnamon Oat Crumble Bars with Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze
Ingredients
Apple Oat Bars
- 2- 3 Apples thinly sliced
- 1¼ cups Coconut sugar
- 1 tbsp Cornstarch
- 2 tbsp Cinnamon
- 1 tbsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
- 2 cups Self-rising flour
- 2 cups Old-fashioned Oats
- ½ tsp Salt
- ¾ cups Butter melted
- 1 tbsp Vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Glaze
- ¼ cup Creams cheese room temperature
- ¼ cup Confectioner sugar
- ¼ cup Butter room temperature
- 4 tbsp Milk
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Instructions
Apple Oat Bars
- Slice the apples thinly and remove the core and seeds.
- In a large mixing bowl add the apple slices 2 tablespoons of coconut sugar, cornstarch, and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- In another bowl, combine flour, oats, pumpkin pie spice, 1 tablespoon of cinnamon, coconut sugar, self-rising flour, vanilla extract, and butter. Mix until it becomes crumbly in texture.
- Line a square baking dish with parchment paper and pour 1/2o f the oats mixture in the bottom of the pan, pressing firmly to make an even layer of crust.
- Pour apples over the crust and spread evenly. Pour the remaining oat mixture over the top and press down gently.
- Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool completely before slicing.
Cream Cheese Glaze
- In a medium bowl blend the cream cheese, butter, vanilla extract, and sugar together till it appears fluffy
- Add the milk one tablespoon at a time until you get the glaze consistency that you like.
- Drizzle over the completely cooled oat bar, Let set in the fridge for about 10 minutes before serving
Happy Eating!
