I baked these apple crumble squares for the contractor and his team way back in early May. They inhaled them! I’m thinking this lot loves fruit so my next treats will focus on the fruity varieties. I found the original recipe here and made some modifications by cutting down the sugar because we don’t love sweet sweets. The pastry is lovely, just the right amount of caramelization and shortcrust texture, the apples are plentiful, soft and sweet and the crumble topping is just the icing on the squares, except it’s crumble and not icing! These are definitely going into my square repertoire. A real tasty treat.
Apple Crumble Squares
Makes 1 23 cm x 33 cm (9″ x 13″) pan
Ingredients for the crust:
- 170 g unsalted butter, room temperature
- 115 g granulated sugar
- 256 g all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- zest of one lemon
- pinch salt
Directions for the crust:
- Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a 23 cm x 33 cm pan with parchment.
- Using a stand mixer, combine the butter and sugar and beat until fluffy. Beat in the flour, cinnamon, lemon zest and salt.
- This is a very soft pastry, roll between two sheets of parchment and press into the parchment-lined pan evenly and bake for 15 minutes.
- Remove from heat and cool as you are slicing the apples.
Ingredients for the Apples:
- 5 medium apples, cored and thinly sliced
- 45 g all-purpose flour
- 65 g granulated sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Directions for the Apples:
- Combine the flour, sugar and cinnamon and mix well.
- Lay a thin layer of apples onto the pastry and sprinkle the flour, sugar and cinnamon over the apples and repeat until all of the apples and flour mixture are utilized.
Ingredients for the Crumble:
- 65 oats, not quick
- 100 g dark brown sugar
- 65 g all- purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 114 g cold butter, cubed
Directions for the Crumble:
- Using a plastic blade in your food processor, combine all of the ingredients and pulse until coarsely combined. Sprinkle evenly over the apples and bake for 45 minutes or until apples are soft to poke through.
- Cool and slice into squares. Serve at room temperature.
I’ll be very interested to hear how this plan of yours goes. Will they go great work because you fed them these marvelous things, or will they stretch the work out and out and out because they don’t want the feast to stop? Hahah. I love the combination of lemon and apple, but – and here’s the weird part – as much as love the combo, it always makes me wish for the flavor of straight-up apple withOUT the lemon. I’m wondering if separating the two: the zest in the crust instead of the apple – would be the perfect solution?
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Easy and delicious…my kind of dessert.
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Aren’t you sweet? Baking for the contractor! But not too sweet of course… GREG
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Bet your contractors want you to adopt them! I sure would. 🙂 These look wonderful — thanks.
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Yum. These sound scrumptious!
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I love anything with crumble! This looks really yummy, no wonder they were a hit!
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Mmmmm….I love apple desserts and these squares look just my style! I bet your workers won’t want to move on to the next job!!!
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