Applesauce Spice Bars

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie selection was picked by Karen of Something Sweet by Karen. She picked the Applesauce Spice Bars, and you can check out her blog for the complete recipe. Once again I was thrilled that this week’s selection was a cookie, and since I especially like the flavors of fall, I was really looking forward to making this recipe. These are the perfect fall bar cookie!

This recipe calls for applesauce as well as diced apple, raisins and pecans. It had just enough spice, which gets even better the day after the bars are made. The bars are topped with a sweet glaze. In conversation with the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers, several people said that there was too little glaze, so I did double the glaze recipe.

The others also mentioned that you really need to let the bars cool before glazing, or the glaze will just soak in to the bars. I let my bars cool for several hours, but I still had problem with the glaze soaking in. I didn’t think it would be too bad, but when I went to cut the bars they were quite soggy on top. With them being so soft, it makes it really tough to pack these up and take them anywhere. I guess my husband and I will just have to eat them!

Not surprisingly, I really like these. They remind me of an apple cake that my paternal grandmother used to make. I need to dig out that recipe and make it sometime soon. The flavors of that cake are the same as these bars, but I recall the cake having bigger chunks of apple and nuts. The glaze was a little bit of an issue. I was sure that my bars were cool enough before glazing, but that didn’t seem to prevent the glaze from soaking in. I think that next time I will allow the glaze to cool a little bit before topping the bars, and maybe that will help.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 117 and 118.