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Easy apple squares are made with cinnamon and brown sugar. These delicious cake bars are very moist, thanks to the vegetable oil and the plain Greek yogurt.
The apple squares are super easy and quick to prepare on a busy weeknight! If you're bored with making the same apple recipes, such as apple crisp, crumble, or cobbler, try these little apple squares, and you'd be very happy! These apple cake bars work great as both dessert and breakfast. Talking about breakfast, have you tried these apple cinnamon pancakes with shredded apples? Or, maybe you will enjoy this cozy apple crumb coffee cake?
Apple Squares with Cinnamon and Brown Sugar
In this recipe, I am using a generous amount of apples, tossed together with cinnamon and brown sugar, folded in the cake batter and baked in a 9x9 square pan. These apple cake bars are really just a lot of apple chunks held together by a relatively small amount of cake batter. 🙂 After all, the apple dessert recipes should be all about apples, shouldn't they?
The apple squares are very moist, thanks to the vegetable oil and the plain Greek yogurt.
Other apple desserts
If you love all things apple, you will love these quick and easy apple desserts:
Apple Breakfast recipes
What could be better than enjoying a small slice of something sweet with apples in the morning? Here are my favorite apple breakfast recipes:
- Pumpkin Banana Bread with Apples
- Crepes with Ricotta Cheese and Caramelized Apples
- Apple Cinnamon Pancakes
- Apple Cinnamon Crepes
Easy Apple Squares (Cake Bars)
Ingredients
- 3 apples peeled, cored, and chopped into small square chunks
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 4 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour sifted
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup white sugar
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- ⅓ cup Greek yogurt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9×9 square pan.
- In a medium bowl, toss chopped apples with cinnamon and brown sugar.
- In a mixing bowl, combine together 1 and ¼ cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and ⅛ teaspoon salt.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together 1 cup of white sugar, vegetable oil, yogurt, and vanilla until very smooth. Add eggs and whisk until smooth.
- Add dry ingredients (flour mixture) into wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Pour half of the batter into the greased pan, top with half of the apples, then pour the remaining half of the batter on top of the apple layer. Top with the remaining half of apples.
- Bake the cake for about 45 minutes or 1 hour - until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Dust with powdered sugar before serving.
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer:
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! My family loved it and have been requesting more ever since! Am just making another batch 🙂
So glad you and your family liked these! 🙂 Thank you for stopping by and leaving such a sweet comment!
Have you ever tried this recipe with other fruits such as blueberries. I think I will try it with blueberries tonight, that's all I have in the house and the weather is terrible out.
Nila, I have not tried these with blueberries, but why not? I should! 🙂
Delicious! I was out of yogurt so used sour cream instead. When I found this recipe I was just thinking.. yea, I'm tired of apple crisp, there has to be something else. Keep up the great recipes 🙂
P :), thank you! I am the same way - I love apple crisp, but want something different with apples, hence I make this recipe and banana breads with apples, etc.
I made these and really love them! I used Gala apples, but next time I want to use Granny Smith. They are so good with coffee or tea. I plan to make them again soon!
Barbara, I am so glad to hear that you liked these apple squares! They are really good with both Gala and Granny Smith. The flavor will be distinctly different if you use sweeter Gala vs. tarter Granny Smiths but equally delicious! Using 2 different types of apples is like 2 different recipes really. 🙂
Hello! Thanks for your recipe! Just made this and they taste lovely :> but I think I could do with even more apples! I added cinnamon to the batter as well and swap some of the oil with apple sauce!
Thanks for stopping by! 🙂 Very glad you liked it. I am sure you could stuff even more apples in this recipe! And a great idea to use apple sauce instead of oil! I need to try this! 🙂
I just made these tonight.. they're cooling off right now.. Can't wait to try them out as thursday night football game desert.. 🙂
I hope by now you've already tried them and liked them, too! 🙂
they look yummy!
I definitely approve of a good amount of apple in an apple cake 🙂
Absolutely gorgeous. I love apple-based desserts. Some day you can blog full time and post an apple dessert daily. 🙂
Maybe 🙂
Beautiful photos! I feel like I don't make apple desserts nearly enough even though I'm always buying apples. What type of apples did you use while baking these? I was thinking I would try honeycrisp or pink lady, but granny smith is always a classic.
I used very sweet and crisp apples for this recipe - I don't remember which kind, but very sweet and crisp (not soft). I also made a second version with very tart Granny Smiths - and it came out great too! After baking, the tart apples got softer and not so tart, and the combination of sweetness from the cake and slight tartness from baked and softened Granny Smiths was very tasty! So, this recipe works well with both very sweet and not so sweet apples. But they have to be crisp (not soft).
Making these this week. My husband will love them. He loves apple desserts and we just went apple picking. Thank you for sharing. As always, yummers!
Jilly, let me know how they turn out!