It was a really busy weekend.
Our Sunday activities included a church potluck at lunch and a 4H Soup Supper Fundraiser in the evening – with exactly one hour between the two.
That meant that we needed to be totally ready for both on Saturday – which made for a pretty crazy kitchen on Saturday afternoon!
I had Angel Girl, her friend Bethany and Dagmar all assisting. When we ran out of dishes we’ll call Buddy and Pedro to wash a few so we could keep moving.
In one afternoon we made barbecue venison, Grandma’s Cherry Dessert (but with blackberries) a chocolate oatmeal cake, lasagna, bread sticks, homemade caramel sauce, potato soup for 100, and a new creation – some yummy Caramel Apple Bars.
At one point – when I was mentally multiplying potato soup recipes in my head and praying that it would all turn out okay (it did!) – I handed Dagmar 2 different apple bar recipes and told her to make something work.
She did! The end result was an oatmeal crust with a gooey caramel apple filling.
We used homemade caramel sauce – since I forgot to buy caramels when I was shopping that morning – and it worked great!
Caramel Apple Bars
Crust:
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup oatmeal
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional – we didn’t use)
Filling:
4-1/2 cups peeled and chopped baking apples (we used a fat quart of our frozen apples)
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 – 14 ounce package caramels
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
Cream together the butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Add flour, oats, salt and baking soda. Mix well. Stir in pecans.
Set aside 2 cups.
Press remaining oat mixture into the bottom of an ungreased 13 x 9 inch pan.
For filling, toss apples with flour and spoon over the crust.
In a saucepan melt the caramels and butter over low heat and drizzle over the apples.
Top with the remaining oatmeal mixture.
Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned.
Cool before cutting into bars.
Enjoy!
I’ve linked this post up with Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace and Tasty Tuesday at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam.
