Apple Streusel Slice with Caramel

Are you looking for an indulgent healthy treat? What about the humble little apple! An all time favourite, especially when paired with cinnamon and caramel.

It's quite ironic that the inspiration from this vegan slice come from a blog called 'Just a little bit of bacon'. The original recipes used Butterscotch sauce which is made with butter but I wanted this one to be vegan as it was the weekend and I had Olivia working so it needed to be free from all things animal. She's a blessing that's for sure as I love having an excuse to create vegan treats.

I also love the weekends, not only are they busy be we have more staff in which means double to fun at morning tea time. It's always a lot busier on the weekends which calls for more hands on deck and it gives Craig some time away from actually cleaning the dogs rooms. He can concentrate on customers and other things that need doing around the property.

Why are you so interested in Veganism Karen? I hear some of you asking this very question. Well! The No 1 reason is simple. I'm just drawn to it. I love plant based food, I love how it makes me feel, it's simplicity, it's calming, it makes me feel happy and content. Why does it do that? I have no idea. I'm not one to overthink and analyse things. If it feels good and I think it's good for me I just run with it. I think I'm more obsessed with not eating grains (ok this recipes has oats in it, but I made this for staff ;-) and I know for a fact that compared to some of the other things they eat, oats are still a great good. One of the best fibres for lowering cholesterol and they add great taste and texture to cooking. Plus they are cheap. I know fully that a lot of wholesome and healthy alternative are quite expensive, adding some oats defiantly helps to lower the overall cost.

And then there's this reason!

Before the Flood by Leonardo Di Caprio

If you haven't seen it or heard about it then I highly recommend that you watch it and that you share it with all of your friends and family.

My husband and I are quite passionate about the planet and saving our precious resources. Hence we have a veggie garden we are expanding on, we live on rain water or bore water when needed, we have solar panels on our house and our business, we compost our kitchen scraps, the dog poo from the kennel is broken down in our environmental worm farm and we don't consume red meat. We source sustainable and cage free eggs. Buy as local as we can all of our fresh produce and we both know we have a lot more that we can improve on. It's a work in progress.

Apple Streusel Slice with Caramel

Inspired by: Just a little bit of Bacon

Serves: 20-24

Ingredients:

Crust and Topping

¾ cup coconut oil

1 ½ cup LLWF SRFlour

1 cups old fashioned oats or quinoa flakes

1 cup coconut sugar

½ cup dried coconut

2 tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp cinnamon

Apple Filling

4 cups diced apples, 3-4 peeled and cored apples

2 tbsp cornstarch or arrowroot

3 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp mixed spice

⅓ cup caramel sauce

Caramel Sauce Topping

1 cup cococnut sugar

1/2 cup pitted dates

300ml coconut cream

1 tsp vanilla

Preparatioin:

You will need to make the caramel sauce before beginning the apple crisp bars.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease or line a 9-13 baking dish paper.

Caramel Sauce:

Add all ingredient to a medium pot of a medium heat, once it's starts to simmer turn the heat to low for about 25-35 minutes then turn off the heat and allow it to cool.

Blend the caramel mixture until smooth the set aside until needed.

For the crust and topping:

Add all the crust ingredients to a large bowl.

With your fingers, mix and work the coconut oil into the dry ingredients until thoroughly combined and it resembles caores sticky breadcrumbs.

Take out 2½ cups of the mixture and reserve for the topping. Then take the remaining mixture and pour it into the prepared baking dish.

Press down the crust to make an even layer then bake for 10 minutes.

For the apple filling:

While the crust is baking, peel and chop the apples.

Then, in a large bowl, mix together all the filling ingredients.

Once the crust comes out of the oven, spread the apple filling over it in an even layer and then sprinkle the reserved topping over apple filling.

Bake the crisp bars for 40-45 minutes, or until the topping is browned and the apples are soft.

Allow the crisp bars to cool completely in the baking dish.