Apple Pie Cookie Bars

We celebrated a birthday in our family last week. Chris's birthday was last Friday, and naturally, I started bugging him about what he wanted for his special birthday dessert at least a week before that. He insisted that he didn't want anything and told me not to worry about it. Yeah, right. Since he would never give me an answer, I decided to try and be innovative. If you have read some of my other posts, you know that Chris really tends to favor the classics...simple, yet delicious, desserts. He loves oatmeal raisin cookies and I THOUGHT he also loves apple pie. Turns out that is Gene, Chris's dad, and Chris really loves pumpkin pie (which I did know that, too, but it didn't work with my idea, so I went with apple and ended up being wrong...OOPS!) Regardless of who really loved apple pie and who didn't, the end result of my attempt at innovation in creating a super duper deluxe birthday dessert tailored especially to Chris's taste turned out to be just that....a super duper deluxe birthday dessert that was DELICIOUS!

So in case you haven't got on by now, what I wanted to do was combine what I thought were two of Chris's favorite desserts into one treat. I started with an oatmeal cookie mix, threw in some raisins and cinnamon, and then pressed the cookie dough into the bottom of the pan for the crust. I then chopped up apples and tossed them in flour, sugar, and cinnamon and created a very simple apple pie filling. I pressed that down onto the oatmeal cookie crust, and then I finished off with a struesel topping. WOW- this served with some ice cream on top...it's practically begging you to eat it, savor in every bite, and welcome fall in with a bang!

Here is the recipe for Apple Pie Cookie Bars:

- 1 pouch Betty Crocker oatmeal cookie mix
- 1 stick butter, softened completely to room temperature
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1 tsp. cinnamon

- 5 medium apples, peeled and sliced into thin pieces
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 tsp. cinnamon

- 1/4 cup cold butter
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 cup instant oats

- Extra flour for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9x13" cake pan with two pieces of overlapping foil, extending over the sides to create handles for easy lifting later. Spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the cookie mix, the butter, the egg, the raisins, and the cinnamon. Mix well. Press cookie dough evenly into bottom of prepared cake pan. Sprinkle the top with a little flour. (This helps absorb some of the extra moisture from the apple pie filling so your cookie layer is not soggy.)
3. In a medium bowl (I used the same one from the cookie dough), toss the apples, the flour, the sugar, and the cinnamon together to coat the apples. Press the apple pie filling evenly over the cookie dough crust. Sprinkle a little flour over the top.
4. In a medium bowl, use a fork or a pastry cutter to blend the cold butter, the flour, the brown sugar, the cinnamon, and the instant oats to create a streusel. Sprinkle the streusel over the top of the pie filling.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 to 32 minutes, until streusel is golden brown on top. Let cool. Cut into bars and serve with ice cream. ENJOY!

These were a perfect dessert to help get me even more ready for fall than I already was...Welcome back apples, maple, pumpkin, and all of those delicious fall flavors. I have missed you, and hopefully you readers have, too, because you will be seeing a lot of them in the weeks to come!

What are some of your favorite things to bake in the fall???