Applesauce Spice Bars with Cream Cheese Icing

This cake came together so quickly and nicely. It is really really tasty. Moist and very flavorful. I love sheet cakes. They are so casual and easy to cut and serve. Since the cake part is so thin, the cake to icing ratio is excellent! I made this cake because I had a lot of little plastic cups of cinnamon Motts applesauce to use on something. I had bought a Costco size box of Motts applesauce that included regular cups of applesauce and cinnamon cups of applesauce. Well, for some reason, my kids would not eat the cinnamon ones! I didn't want to waste them so I figured I'd bake with them. This was the perfect recipe for that. Perfect. I will definitely make this cake again. And I'd like to think it's somewhat healthy since there is so much applesauce in it and whole wheat flour. You can probably try exchanging another cup of the all purpose flour for a cup of whole wheat to add even more nutrition. And to cut back on calories you can even consider not making a thick frosting like icing. Maybe a vanilla powdered sugar glaze drizzled lightly on top would be wonderful.
I highly recommend this recipe. I think it's superb. It will be great for spring & summer barbeques & picnics.
Enjoy!

Applesauce Spice Bars with Cream Cheese Icing

I made mine in a 3/4 sheet pan so it was pretty thin. You can try making it in a 13x9 inch pan but you might have a little bit too much batter and of course it will be more cake like instead of "bar like".

Bar Ingredients:

2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup softened butter
2 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 cups applesauce (I used Motts cinnamon applesauce)
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Icing Ingedients:

1 8 0z package of cream cheese, softened
1 stick butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
About 6-7 cups powdered sugar
Milk or Half & Half - amount depends on consistency you want - maybe 1/4 cup?

Oven 340 degrees
Spray your choice of pan with cooking spray

Combine sugar & butter and eggs in large bowl. Beat at medium speed until creamy. Reduce to low and add all the remaining ingredients.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake about 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. (The amount of time in the oven depends on your pan- thicker cakes take a lot longer)

Cool cake completely, in the pan, on a wire rack.

Combine all icing ingredients in a bowl and beat until creamy. Frost the cooled bars/cake.

Other Options:

You can add raisins to the batter.
You can sprinkle walnuts or pecans on top of bars after you have iced them.
You can cut back on the spices or add more in different combinations.
The icing would be delicious with some orange juice added instead of milk