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.

***

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!

Pie in the Sky

There are no apple pies in the Bible. In fact, apples have had their share of bad press as the poster child for original sin. (For the record, Genesis talks about the fruit of the tree in the Garden of Eden, but doesn't specify that Adam and Eve actually plucked apples to get themselves into trouble.)

So it may seem like sacrilege that we gave up Sunday School after worship to make apple pies. But the 30 or so people who stayed to peel, slice, toss, roll, crimp and package were "doing church" as we gathered in what is appropriately called Fellowship Hall. Between the laughter and good-natured banter, there was definitely fellowship going on.

The apple pies will be sold at the United Methodist Women bazaar on Election Day, November 4. They are frozen, and buyers will take them home to bake the pies in their own kitchens. 

For the 33 years I've been part of Stafford United Methodist Church, the United Methodist Women have tried to recruit workers by telling them, "Nobody has to make a whole pie." It sounds like an oxymoron. Isn't making pies the ultimate goal?

Yes, it is. But nobody has to make a pie all by their lonesome. It reminds me of I Corinthians 12:

⁴ There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. ⁵ There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. ⁶ There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. ...¹² Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 

Everyone had their own jobs, including my husband. 

Several of the guys ran the mechanical peeler/corer station. Randy says there were the inevitable comparisons of running farm machinery and kitchen gadgets - and the ever-present need for tinkering and repairs. 

There also seemed to be a brainstorming session at that table. South Hutchinson UMC has a food booth at the Kansas State Fair. These guys were thinking that we could batter apple skins, fry them, and find some way to offer them up on a stick at next year's fair. We certainly had plenty of them.

Another table peeled apples the old-fashioned way with peelers and paring knives.

We didn't charge extra for smiles or conversation.

Once the apples were peeled, there was a stop at the apple slicing station.

 

From there, they went into the crowded kitchen. An assembly line of workers measured the sugar, cinnamon and flour mixture that would coat the apples.

Among them was Kyle, who would later drive back to K-State to study for a Monday test. His Grandma Bonnie, who passed away earlier this year, always crimped the pies. The family legacy continued.

Our youngest helper, Liam, was part of three generations of workers with grandparents and parents doing their part, too. Liam drifted between jobs, but seemed to most enjoy stirring the flour, sugar and cinnamon mixture into the apples with Jo. 

 

But he was also willing to roll up his sleeves and help his Mommy, too.

Two of the guys were recruited for pie crust making. Marion makes pie crust mix from scratch (using 3 pounds of shortening at a time!) and then just adds water on the apple pie construction day.

These ladies could be heard asking, "Do you need a top crust or a bottom crust?"

After the filling went in, the pie crimpers made sure it all looked good.

In the end, we made 65 pies in just 2 hours. More importantly, Fellowship Hall lived up to its name.

And, there was truth in advertising: Nobody had to make a whole pie. Only a few key people came knowing exactly what their job would be. The rest of us just showed up with willing hands and willing hearts.

And isn't that a metaphor for our Christian journeys, too? We may not know exactly what "job" we'll be called to do today. But we do know the ultimate goal. 

For more photos, "like" Stafford First United Methodist Church on Facebook (as if I haven't given you enough.)

Apple Butter Pie Bars

The year was 1923. In May, a plane flew from New York to San Diego in the first nonstop transcontinental flight. President Warren G. Harding suddenly fell ill while returning from a trip to Alaska and then died on August 2, while in office.  Scientists developed a vaccine for whooping cough. Federal spending was at $3.14 billion, while the unemployment rate was at 2.4 percent. The cost of a first-class stamp was a whopping 2 cents.

And the Stafford United Methodist Women first organized a fundraiser to support church missions.

On Saturday, November 9, the Stafford UMW will celebrate 90 years of fundraisers with its church bazaar. This year's version is from 10 AM to 1 PM in the church basement.

The first fundraisers were banquets, since the church basement was one of the larger places in Stafford. Nobody seems to know when the annual bazaar started, but it's been more than 32 years (since I've been around that long).

It's pretty amazing when you think about it: For 90 years, United Methodist Women (and men these days) have worked together to accomplish a common goal.

One of the long-time traditions is UMW Apple Butter. This version is a sweet and spicy combination of applesauce, sugar, spices and the secret ingredient - red hots. The apple butter you find in the grocery aisles just can't compare.
Apple butter will again be offered for sale on Saturday. So will frozen apple pies, ready for the buyers to bake for their own Thanksgiving or Christmas tables.

Yesterday, I spent all day in my own kitchen making mini loaves of quick breads, snack mixes, and dozens of cookies to sell at our packaged food table. I have another baking day on the calendar this week to make yeast breads. (My back is protesting, so I don't think it will be today!)

When I saw this recipe for Apple Butter Pie Bars, I knew it was the perfect vehicle for Stafford UMW Apple Butter. And it was. (But, if you're not lucky enough to live close enough to get your own jar of our special blend, you can substitute a commercial apple butter).

These bars are the best the first day, when the bottom crust is crisper. But the flavors are wonderful from start to finish, even if you don't use all the bars at once.

If you are in the Stafford vicinity, you are cordially invited to the bazaar on Saturday from 10 to 1. We'll be serving homemade cinnamon rolls and coffeecakes for your morning coffee break (or a break from the first day of pheasant and quail hunting!) And we'll have chicken and noodles, ham & beans and vegetable soup for lunch, along with sandwiches and homemade pie.

Come help us celebrate 90 years of fellowship and fundraising for missions - here at home and beyond!

Apple Butter Pie Bars

Modified from the blog, Crazy for Crust

Crust:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt

Filling:
1 1/2 cups Stafford UMW apple butter (or other cinnamon apple butter)
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

Topping:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9- by 13-inch pan with baking spray and set aside.

For crust: Combine dry ingredients, mixing to incorporate. Using a pastry blender, cut in the butter until the mixture is well blended. Press into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake for 15 minutes.

While the crust is baking, prepare the topping. Combine all dry ingredients, mixing to incorporate. Using the pastry blender, cut in the butter until the mixture forms coarse crumbs.

After the 15 minutes of baking, remove the crust from the oven. Spread the apple butter evenly over the baked layer. Sprinkle with walnuts (or other nuts). Sprinkle the topping evenly over the filling and press gently to compact. Bake for an additional 20 to 25 minutes until topping is golden brown.

Cool completely before removing from pan. Cut into squares.

***

Another favorite recipe using UMW Apple Butter is this coffee cake. You'll want to buy several jars of apple butter to have on hand.  (And, again, if you must, you can use commercial apple butter in this recipe.)

Apple Butter Coffee Cake

***

Today, I'm linked to Wake Up Wednesdays through Wichita blogger Ashley's Kitchen Meets Girl blog. Click on the link to see tons of other tried-and-true recipes.

Truth in Advertising

"Nobody has to make a whole pie."

Perhaps it seems a bit misleading for an apple pie making day to be "advertised" in that manner. After all, why have an apple pie day if not to make apple pies?

Truth is, nobody has to make an apple pie alone. Bazaar workdays illustrate the maxim: "Many hands make light work."

Previous pie making experience is not required. And here is the proof.

Randy sliced and diced and visited with the best of 'em. (That will teach him to come to the church to do his treasurer's duty on apple pie day.)

It was poetic justice, in a way. Since Stafford UMC is his childhood church, he's eaten his share of UMW Apple Pies though the years. His mom was a mover and shaker when it came to bazaar doings. He seemed to become the mascot for the ladies peeling apples.

Fellowship Hall is aptly named on apple pie making day. The conservation flows as freely as discarded apple peels from 3 bushels of apples.

There are stations for all the needed steps: apple peeling, apple chopping, cinnamon-sugar application and butter dotting.

There's the pie crust mixer, the pie crust rollers and the finishing crew.

I think I was assigned nearly every job that day. So what does that say? I choose to believe it's because of my versatility. (But maybe they were desperately searching for a job I couldn't mess up too badly.)

After all, I was the least experienced person there (if you don't count Randy).

Then there were the pros like Ellen. She's made a pie or two in her 87 years.

So come buy a pie. Or buy some pints of apple butter. Or buy some of the cookies, quick breads, cinnamon rolls and crescent rolls I've spent the last three days baking. The bazaar is from 9 AM to 2 PM Saturday, November 12, at the church basement.

These ladies know how to make chicken and noodles, too.

Tradition

Tradition can get you in hot water. It can also be as soothing as a hot "bath." It's that delicate balance that's the tricky part.

Sometimes people look at tradition as an impediment to change. We get comfortable in our old, comfy shoes, and we don't care if they make us look dumpy. We know a new pair would give our whole look an update, but they might squeeze our toes.

But tradition can also be a way to build the future, while honoring the past. Since 1923, the women of the Stafford United Methodist Church have organized some kind of fundraiser to support church missions. The first fundraisers were banquets, since the church basement was one of the larger places in town. Nobody seems to know when the annual bazaar started, but it's been more than 30 years (since I've been around that long)!

It's pretty amazing when you think about it: For nearly 90 years, United Methodist Women (and some men these days) have worked together to accomplish a common goal.

One of those long-time traditions is UMW Apple Butter. At the end of September, we again got together to make apple butter flavored with red hots.

When I first joined the workdays in the UMW kitchen many years ago, we started the process from scratch. We peeled apples and cooked them down to applesauce. Then we turned it into the brightly-colored spread.

But as lives have gotten busier and there are fewer helping hands, we now start with canned applesauce. I'm sure it was a hard transition to make for people who've been doing it the other way for decades.

But, in the long run, I don't think people can tell the difference. It's still our red-hot colored, cinnamon-flavored spread.

This year, the bazaar will be a little different. We won't have the "treasure" room or the used clothing room. But we will still have some of those hallmarks that make the bazaar the bazaar - like apple butter, frozen apple pies and chicken & noodles.

But if you come to the Stafford UMW bazaar on Saturday, November 12, from 9 AM to 2 PM, you'll still see tradition. It might even be wearing new shoes.

***

I always have to pick up a few jars of apple butter so that I can make one of our favorite coffeecakes. We had a Sunday School party after worship on Sunday, and I brought Apple Butter Coffeecake as one of my offerings.

Enjoy!

Apple Butter Coffee Cake

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup apple butter
1 cup dairy sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
Topping (see below)

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and beat well. Mix dry ingredients together, and add alternately with sour cream. Add vanilla and apple butter. Put half the batter into a greased 13- by 9-inch pan. Sprinkle with topping. Place other half on batter on top and sprinkle with rest of the topping. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Topping

1/3 cup flour
2 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup chopped nuts
1/2 tsp. nutmeg

Combine all ingredients and sprinkle over batter.

If you want a "fancier" presentation, you may put this is a Bundt or tube pan. I usually put half the batter into the pan and sprinkle with half the topping. Then I use the rest of the batter and sprinkle on the remaining topping. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing onto a pretty serving platter.

I usually glaze the coffee cake with a thin frosting made of melted butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and a little milk. This time, I made a brown sugar icing by melting butter and brown sugar together until the sugar was dissolved. Then add powdered sugar, vanilla and milk to make a frosting glaze.

If you're making a Bundt or tube cake, drizzle the frosting in "swags," creating a decorative pattern. You will need to wait for it to cool a little before frosting, so the frosting stays in place and doesn't puddle on the plate.

I have a large tube pan. So I made 1 1/2 recipes for our Sunday School event.

When I make this recipe, I use the UMW Apple Butter. The red hot cinnamon candies in the recipe give our version the distinctive pink color. But you may use any apple butter. It just might not have that lovely pink tinge.

Teamwork

My walks along our country roads this time of year are punctuated with the call of geese as they fly overhead. Our home just south of the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge puts us in the flight pattern for the birds.

Most times, the geese form the familiar "V" pattern as they fly through the air. There have been lots of people who have cashed in on analyzing the birds' behavior. They think we humans can learn a lesson from the geese, who use teamwork and cooperation to get where they're going.

I think we humans are pretty good at teamwork, too. And that was again confirmed when our church recently had its annual bazaar. Since 1923, the women of the church have organized some kind of fundraiser to support church missions. The first fundraisers were banquets, since the church basement was one of the larger places in town. Nobody seems to know when the annual bazaar started, but it's been more than 30 years (since I've been around that long)!

It's pretty amazing when you think about it: For nearly 90 years, United Methodist Women (and some men these days) have worked together to accomplish a common goal.

When my mother-in-law was alive, she organized craft days. The women of the church got together and made Christmas angels or Thanksgiving turkeys or whatever Marie dreamed up.

Though those craft days are no longer, we still get together for food workdays. The UMW Apple Butter is on the agenda for one fall morning.

We have some people who grew up in Stafford who send their relatives to pick up pint jars of the stuff. It's a distinctive red color because of the red hots that give it the cinnamon-apple taste. We had 100 pint jars prepared.

By the end of the bazaar, all of them were snatched up. (For a great recipe using apple butter, click on this link for Apple Butter Coffee Cake. Even though I use UMW apple butter for it, commercial apple butter would be good, too.)

We also make apple pies in a variation of the old quilting bees. Instead of stitching together quilts, we spend a morning putting together apple pies. We freeze them and then offer them just in time for holiday baking. Those were a sell-out, too, disappointing a few people who didn't make it in time to get one.

When the apple pie making day rolls around, the organizers are good at recruitment.

"You don't have to know how to make a pie," they tell the newbies. "Everybody just does their own job."

And it's true. There are the apple peelers and corers.

There are people who slice them.

(Erica, who just graduated from K-State was our youngest helper. Our age range went from 22 years old to several octogenarians. Her Dad, Boyd, fell somewhere in the middle!)

Others add sugar and spices to the apples.

Still others roll out pie crust: One may do the bottom crust and another the top crust.

Somebody else dots the pie with bits of butter. Still another crimps the edges. The final person puts it in a plastic bag and sends it to the freezer.

Usually there aren't too many Lucille Ball assembly line moments!

It's the perfect illustration of teamwork - everyone doing a little part and accomplishing a bigger purpose. Those geese have nothing on us, do they?

The world has changed. Eighty years ago, women didn't work outside the home. Church activities were their "get-away," a time during the week to come and visit with their friends. Sure, they were also working on a project, but it was undoubtedly a social outlet as well.

Today, many women work 8 to 5 jobs (and beyond). Our UMW has tried to involve the younger generations by scheduling some of the work on weekends. For the second year, our bazaar was on a Saturday, instead of on Election Day as it had been for decades.

But we "younger" ones don't spend a lot of time hanging up clothes in the used clothing room or sorting and marking donated items in the "treasure" room (AKA junque room!). Those tasks are primarily accomplished by ladies in their 70s and 80s. (And, a sidenote, I'm always amused by being one of the younger ones when I'm past the half-century mark!)

Several of us contribute by providing goodies for a packaged food area. And, yes, I was alone in my own kitchen as I made 27 dozen cookies, 6 dozen cinnamon rolls, several dozen crescent rolls, 11 mini loaves of quick breads and buckets of snack mix to sell. But I still feel like I was part of that "V" formation, a contributing member of the team, working toward accomplishing a common goal.

I heard rumblings again this year that the UMW 2010 Bazaar might be the last. We'll see. I've heard the rumors before, so I'm not ready to sound the death knell. Like Mark Twain once said, "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

Maybe 2010 will be the end of the bazaar. Only time will tell. If it is, we went out on a high note. We raised more than $3,800 for missions and ministries efforts at our church.

Even if it's the end of the bazaar, I know it won't be the end of cooperation - in our church or in the community.

We humans do our best work when we fly in the "V" formation, too. If it's not the bazaar, we'll find new ways to come together.

I truly believe it.