Ingredients
|
Apples
2 Honeycrisp apples, cored, peeled and chopped. 1T pure maple syrup Splash of lemon juice ⅛ t speculaaskruiden OR cinnamon 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, Ideally softened at room temperature, but not necessary |
Bars
2 ⅓ cups flour 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder ½ teaspoon salt 1 ¼ t speculaaskruiden OR 1 t ground cinnamon and ¼ t ground nutmeg 1 ⅓ cups dark brown sugar (loose) 2 eggs, at room temperature 1 ½ t pure vanilla extract |
What To Do
Set out a 9” x 13” baking pan and line with parchment paper for baking. Make sure you have a sauce pan large enough to brown butter and also cook apples. Set out two heatproof mixing bowls: one for cooling the browned butter and another for the apples.
To prep, core and cut apples into small chunks. Dump into one of the prepped bowls. Add maple syrup, lemon juice, and speculaaskruiden (or cinnamon/nutmeg), toss gently and set aside.
Make browned butter. Dump the blocks of butter into sauce pan that has a lightly colored bottom. Old-school Revereware or a ceramic bottom is better than anodized aluminum like Calphalon because you can see when the butter starts to brown. Melt over medium heat. You will need to babysit this part and stir continuously.
Butter will foam and may look a little curd-ey at the first stage of melting. Have faith and keep stirring for about 8-9 minutes. Around the 7-8 minute mark, the butter will brown, and it will happen fast. The liquid will clarify (i.e., will look more like oil), and you’ll see little brown specks forming at the bottom of the pan. And it will start to smell amazing, like nuts and caramel. When this happens, remove from heat, pour into a heat-proof bowl to cool a bit.
Dump the apples into the same sauce pan that you browned the butter in. Cook until apples have slightly softened, but are not squishy. This takes at most 5 minutes. Dump the cooked apples into another bowl and let cool a bit.
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Sift flour, baking powder, salt, and speculaaskruiden together in a large bowl.
Dump brown sugar, slightly cooled brown butter and vanilla into a Kitchenaid and mix together. Test the temperature of the mixture to make sure it’s not too hot for the eggs, either by feeling the outside of the mixing bowl, or touching with a very clean finger (ala rice cooker water technique). Add eggs one at a time until just mixed together. Add dry ingredients in a 2-3 batches until just combined. It will look really runny at first, but after the last of the flour mixture is added, the dough will come together quickly. Remove the mixer arm and fold in the apples by hand until well combined into a thick-ish fairly sticky dough.
Pour into the parchment-lined pan and smooth it out as best you can. Bake for about 15 minutes and then rotate the pan to get even browning. Bake for about another 20 minutes until the top is slightly more than golden brown and a turkey needle or toothpick comes out clean.
Take out, let cool for a few minutes and then use the parchment edges to lift out of the pan.
To prep, core and cut apples into small chunks. Dump into one of the prepped bowls. Add maple syrup, lemon juice, and speculaaskruiden (or cinnamon/nutmeg), toss gently and set aside.
Make browned butter. Dump the blocks of butter into sauce pan that has a lightly colored bottom. Old-school Revereware or a ceramic bottom is better than anodized aluminum like Calphalon because you can see when the butter starts to brown. Melt over medium heat. You will need to babysit this part and stir continuously.
Butter will foam and may look a little curd-ey at the first stage of melting. Have faith and keep stirring for about 8-9 minutes. Around the 7-8 minute mark, the butter will brown, and it will happen fast. The liquid will clarify (i.e., will look more like oil), and you’ll see little brown specks forming at the bottom of the pan. And it will start to smell amazing, like nuts and caramel. When this happens, remove from heat, pour into a heat-proof bowl to cool a bit.
Dump the apples into the same sauce pan that you browned the butter in. Cook until apples have slightly softened, but are not squishy. This takes at most 5 minutes. Dump the cooked apples into another bowl and let cool a bit.
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Sift flour, baking powder, salt, and speculaaskruiden together in a large bowl.
Dump brown sugar, slightly cooled brown butter and vanilla into a Kitchenaid and mix together. Test the temperature of the mixture to make sure it’s not too hot for the eggs, either by feeling the outside of the mixing bowl, or touching with a very clean finger (ala rice cooker water technique). Add eggs one at a time until just mixed together. Add dry ingredients in a 2-3 batches until just combined. It will look really runny at first, but after the last of the flour mixture is added, the dough will come together quickly. Remove the mixer arm and fold in the apples by hand until well combined into a thick-ish fairly sticky dough.
Pour into the parchment-lined pan and smooth it out as best you can. Bake for about 15 minutes and then rotate the pan to get even browning. Bake for about another 20 minutes until the top is slightly more than golden brown and a turkey needle or toothpick comes out clean.
Take out, let cool for a few minutes and then use the parchment edges to lift out of the pan.
Notes and Talking Story
- Speculaaskruiden is a Dutch spice mix that includes, among other things, coriander and white pepper. It makes for a more complex, spicy, and very aromatic spice blend over cinnamon and nutmeg or even pumpkin pie spice.
- It’s a great fall/winter baking spice and I use the recipe from TinyDutchKitchen, and substitute allspice for cloves, mostly because I didn’t have it, but also because I’m not that fond of cloves.
- Sally’s Baking Addiction Apple Blondies is the awesome starting point I used. However, I’ve found a lot of baking recipes to be very sugar-heavy, so much so that I routinely reduce the amount of sugar right off the bat, and I don't pack the brown sugar.
- In addition to using speculaaskruiden, the FMO bar uses less sugar, and ix-nayed the brown butter icing.
- I also added some lemon juice to the apples to brighten the flavor up a bit.
