Easy Apple Streusel Recipe

This afternoon, I cooked up a lovely German themed meal for our family - and about an hour before my husband came in to eat, I realized I forgot dessert! I whipped up this new streusel recipe that's guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser at your house - it was at ours!!!

There's 3 layers, so I'll break it down for you:

Crust Ingredients & Instructions:
1.5 sticks of room temp butter (use what you have - salted or unsalted, but if you use salted, just add a pinch of salt to the recipe)

1/3 C sugar (basic granulated)

1T vanilla extract

2C all purpose flour (or bread flour if you happen to buy it in 50lb bags and use it for everything - wink wink)

**depending where you live, you may also need to use an egg, but I didn't...the egg will help bind everything together, but if you have a cookie texture without it, you can leave it out.

Combine all crust ingredients listed above and press into a 9x13 greased baking pan - set aside

Apple Layer Ingredients & Instructions:
1 1/2C applesauce (of course home made is best)

6 medium sized apples of your favorite variety (peeled and cubed)

**my homemade apple sauce has a lot of cinnamon in it - if you are using plain applesauce, you may want to add some cinnamon if that's what your family enjoys.

Mix the apples and applesauce then spread evenly over your crust layer - set aside while you make your topping (now is when I preheat my oven to 350F, but if your oven takes awhile, then maybe start sooner)

Topping Ingredients & Instructions:
1.5 sticks of butter (again - just use what you've got, this is meant to be easy)

2C flour

1/2C brown sugar (I like dark brown, but whatever you have on hand is great, and if you only have white sugar, just add a splash of maple syrup or even pancake syrup)

Mix these ingredients with a hand mixer or stand mixer (takes forever by hand - but if that's your only option - go for it) until they're a crumbly mixture - then spoon and sprinkle onto the apple mixture. You should have plenty of topping, so be generous.

**Once everything is assembled in the pan and the oven is at 350F you're ready to toss this baby in the oven! I like the middle rack, but depending where you live, adjust accordingly. You don't want the bottom to get too hot, or you'll have that burnt cookie essence going on.

Bake for 45 minutes or until it looks absolutely fabulous and the house smells like heaven. Allow to cool a bit and then serve with a hearty scoop of vanilla ice cream!

ENJOY!!!!

Crystal is a council secretary and musician at her church, birth mother, babywearing cloth diapering mama (aka crunchy mama), business owner, active journaler, writer and blogger, Blog Tour Manager with WOW! Women on Writing, Publicist with Dream of Things Publishing, Press Corp teammate for the DairyGirl Network, Unicorn Mom Ambassador, as well as a dairy farmer. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and their five youngest children (Carmen 11, Andre 10, Breccan 4, Delphine 3, and baby Eudora), two dogs, four little piggies, a handful of cats and kittens, and over 230 Holsteins.

You can find Crystal riding unicorns, taking the ordinary and giving it a little extra (making it extraordinary), blogging and reviewing books, baby carriers, cloth diapers, and all sorts of other stuff here, and at WOW!Women on Writing - Crystal is dedicated to turning life's lemons into lemonade!