cheesecake

Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars

Friday, February 22, 2013

In celebration of Noah's birthday, I used my new-found love of baking and decided to make him something special.  As in, cheescake.  He loves anything apple and caramel combo, so I thought this would be perfect!  The only problem was, we didn't have enough cream cheese.  And my mom had vowed we weren't going anywhere, because of the snow.  (this was on Thursday, if y'all  hadn't already guessed).  So I had to use what we had.  And we didn't have as much as I had orginally thought!!!!!!!!
Don't tell my family members, but I was missing at least 9 oz. of cream cheese that was supposed to be in the middle of the cake.  I don't think anyone noticed:)





Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars
 
 
Yield: 16 bars
Ingredients
    Crust:
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  • Cheesecake Filling:
  • 3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
  • 3/4 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons, divided
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • Apples:
  • 3 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • Streusel Topping:
  • 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup quick cooking oats
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
  • Drizzle:
  • 1/2 cup caramel topping for drizzling after baked
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. In a medium bowl, combine flour and brown sugar. Cut in butter with a pastry blender (or 2 forks) until mixture is crumbly. Press evenly into a 9x13 baking pan lined with heavy-duty aluminum foil. Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned.
  3. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese with 3/4 cup sugar in an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth. Then add eggs, 1 at a time, and vanilla. Stir to combine. Pour over warm crust.
  4. In a small bowl, stir together chopped apples, remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Spoon evenly over cream cheese mixture.
  5. For the streusel topping: In a small bowl, combine all ingredients. I like to really combine it by using my clean hands to thoroughly combine the butter into the mixture.
  6. Sprinkle Streusel topping over apples. Bake 40-45 minutes, or until filling is set. Drizzle with caramel topping and let cool. Serve cold and enjoy! Make 16 servings.
 
Other news, I found this awesome awesome website through Pinterest that's super cute with a ton of amazing looking recipes and pictures on it!!  Lately I've been trying to figure out some fun things that will make my blog more "proffessional", and this girl's is something kind of like what I would like my blog to look like.  No, I wouldn't ONLY post about baking like she does, but it is still super cute.  All that said, you can get to it by clicking here.  Also, to see an awesome post about food photography and how she gets her food to look SO delicous, see here.
 
So how did you all celebrate the snow?  Did you stay inside, snuggled up and cozy?
Or did you brave the cold and go outside for snow ball fights and epic failures like we did?  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we actually had a contest to see who could crash their sleds and make it look the best.  I failed.  Ironic, isn't it?  I fail at failing!!  Hm, didn't see that coming!
 

You Might Also Like

2 comments

  1. Love that girl's blog!!! Never knew you could fail at failing...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey, I love her blog, too! :) I thought I was the only one who knew about hers... NOT! :) And I would say that failing at failing is a good thing. You get your failures out if the way on failing, and then succeed at things that matter. :)

    ReplyDelete

Hey! Person commenting! Yes, you. Wanna know something?

You're kinda awesome.