Apple cobbler combines a homey, crowd-pleasing mixture of apples, cinnamon, and sugar with a lightly sweetened, biscuit-like topping. It’s one of our favorite desserts, but it’s a plated affair; we wanted to bring its flavors together in a treat we could eat anytime or anywhere. Enter: cobbler bars. Instead of using fresh apples which would undoubtedly make for a soggy cookie no matter how much we cooked them we turned to both apple butter and dried apples, which we added to the buttery cake-like base of our bars.
The apple butter gave the bar good apple flavor without making it wet like applesauce did. And the chopped dried apples, sprinkled over the base, provided textural contrast. Next, the bars needed their cobbler topping. Adding bread crumbs to the standard mixture of flour, butter, and sugar gave it an extra-toasty flavor once baked, as well as a unique crunch. And we couldn’t resist sneaking in a common New England apple cobbler accompaniment: cheddar cheese. With the contrast of salty, nutty, sharp cheese, we think these cobbler bars might be even better than their inspiration. This recipe works fine with both homemade and store-bought plain bread crumbs.