Caramel Apple Oat Squares

I had some leftover apple pie filling from my apple hand pies the other day. Those hand pies were a huge success and so delicious. This recipe.... eh, not so much. I found it on the Wilderness pie filling website. My big and only change to this recipe is that I made my own apple filling and therefore did not need a can of Wilderness apple pie filling. This recipe also uses caramels which need to be melted with an entire can of sweetened condensed milk. For those of you who regularly read my blog, you KNOW that I love things on the sweet side. Very very sweet in fact. Well this recipe was too sweet for me! Yikes! Another issue I had with this recipe; it was basically a firm apple crisp. The pieces I cut after it had cool were definitely not firm enough to lift with your hand. I had to slide the piece onto a plate and eat with a fork. So it was like a firm apple crisp and or not firm enough bar cookie. I made two 13x9 inch pans and sent all of them to the office with my husband. He said everyone loved them and they went really quickly. Well, I know at my office whenever there is free food, it always goes quickly - even if the quality if lacking. I posted the recipe below for whatever it's worth.

I melted the caramels and condensed milk in the microwave until smooth.

The bottom crust of these bars is the same mixture that gets crumbled on top. Butter, oats, flour, brown sugar, baking soda & salt.

After crust has been prebaked for about 15 minutes, you remove it from oven and spread the apple filling on top.

After you spread the apple filling, you top that with the melted caramel/condensed milk mixture. Then you crumble the remaining crust mixture on top.

This photo makes it look kind of tasty! Look at the caramel oozing out! Actually it was tasty and I ate enough of it. It was just achingly sweet.

Caramel Apple Oat Squares

From the Comstock/Wilderness website

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup cold butter or margarine
1 cup chopped walnuts
20 caramels, unwrapped
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated milk)
1 (21-ounce) can COMSTOCK or WILDERNESS Apple Pie Filling

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. In large bowl, combine flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda and salt; cut in butter until crumbly. Reserving 1-1/2 cups crumb mixture, press remainder on bottom of 13x9-inch baking pan. Bake 15 minutes.
2. Add nuts to reserved crumb mixture.
3. In heavy saucepan, over low heat, melt caramels with sweetened condensed milk, stirring until smooth. Spoon COMSTOCK or WILDERNESS apple filling over prepared crust; top with caramel mixture, then reserved crumb mixture. Bake 20 minutes or until set. Cool. Serve warm with ice cream. Store leftovers covered in refrigerator.