Holly's Spiced Applesauce Bars With Cream Cheese Frosting

Submitted by akgrown

"These are my mom's super moist dense bars full of applesauce, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and cloves topped with a lucious cream cheese frosting. These were a favorite of mine as a child and I still love em'! These are baked in a half sheet pan."

 

• Ready In: 38mins
• Ingredients: 14
• Serves: 18-24

ingredients

• Bars

• 1 cup shortening
• 2 1⁄4 cups sugar
• 3 eggs, beaten well
• 3 3⁄4 cups applesauce (I use unsweetened)
• 4 1⁄2 cups flour
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 3 teaspoons allspice
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons nutmeg
• 2 1⁄4 teaspoons cloves
• 2 1⁄4 teaspoons baking soda

• Frosting

• 3⁄4 cup butter, softened
• 12 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 1⁄2 lbs powdered sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla

directions

1. Cream shortening and sugar.
2. Add rest of ingredients and mix well.
3. Pour batter into a greased half sheet pan and bake at 375* for 20-30 min or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool completely then frost.
4. ***My mom always cut these into rectangle shaped bars about 1 1/2" by 3".***.
5. -Frosting-.
6. Mix all ingredients together until smooth.

Reviews

[Karen=^..^=]

This was scrumptious! I think I screwed up, though: After I mixed the batter, it didn't look like enough for a half sheet pan, so I used a 13 x 9 pan. I baked for only 30 minutes and it was *almost* overdone, even though in this pan the batter was twice as thick as it would have been in the half sheet pan. Mine came out to about 1 1/2" high, so I guess it's more of a cake, but that's ok. Next time I'll try the sheet pan, but I don't think it will take 35-40 minutes. Thanks for posting...this is a really nice combo of spices and makes a really moist cake.