Valentine Treats: Apple Butter Snickerdoodle Bars & More

Looking for a quick and easy Valentine's Day treat? If something has "snickerdoodle" in the title, it has promise, right?

My Mom is the queen of snickerdoodles. For Valentine's Day, she'll often pipe pink-frosting hearts on top of her traditional snickerdoodle cookies. Frosting flavored with a dab of almond extract makes everything taste even better - even snickerdoodles (which are pretty tasty all on their own)! 

When I saw the recipe for Apple Butter Snickerdoodle Bars, I decided to make my church friends the guinea pigs for something new. Our United Methodist Women make and sell cinnamon apple butter each year for the fall bazaar. So it's a bonus to find a recipe where I can use even more of our apple butter.

I'm always a fan of time-saving bar cookies since they don't have to be individually dropped on a baking sheet. They went over well at the church meeting, and I stuck some in the freezer so I can pull them out and "recycle" them for Valentine's Day.

But they are easy enough for you to pull together quickly as a special treat for your special someone(s) for Valentine's Day on Saturday. (There are some other ideas for Valentine's Day at the bottom of this post.)

Apple Butter Snickerdoodle Bars

1 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup apple butter
2 tbsp. sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 13- by 9-inch pan with cooking spray. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar until well creamed. Add eggs and vanilla, scraping sides of bowl as needed. Combine salt, baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and flour. Add dry mixture to creamed mixture, and mix well.

Reserve 1 1/2 cups dough. Press remaining dough into prepared pan. Spread apple butter evenly over the dough layer. Drop remaining dough as evenly as possible over the apple butter. It won't cover it completely.

Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until edges are set and center is just slightly loose. Don't overbake.

Allow to cool before cutting into 24 squares.

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Here are some other ideas for Valentine treats:

Homemade Pretzels

Decadent Chocolate Torte

Chocolate Chip Truffles



 Cake Ball Truffles


 Caramel Chip Bars

My Valentine would prefer a blueberry pie.

Either traditional blueberry ...

or crumb-topped!

There are lots of other tried-and-tested dessert recipes here on Kim's County Line for everything from snack mixes to drop cookies to bar cookies to cakes to pies. I don't post them unless we like them! There is a search function at the upper left of the blog. Or, you can always ask. Just post a comment here or email me at rkjbfarms@gmail.com

Happy Valentine's Day!