A few days ago I began house/dog sitting for some friends who needed to go out of town. When I go to their pad, I found a note on their fridge that said I could raid the house and devour everything in sight! Okay, so maybe that wasn’t their actual wording buuuuuuuuuuuut it’s how my brain interpreted it! 😉 Inside the produce drawer sat some decent looking apples, which all of you mainlanders might be getting sick of by now up there in the land of Johnny Appleseed, but down here in the tropics they can be hard to come by. The apples + the fact that I’m staying in a house that has an actual oven(!) meant that I could finally make this dessert that I’ve been craving for weeks. WOOT! The post below was written back in Oct. 2009. Back when there were two people behind WWE and I still lived in San Diego. Things in my life are completely different from when I posted this originally but the bars are still off the chain. I hope you enjoy these bars as much as my friends will later tonight!

We’re eating cinnamon apple pecan crumb bars made with local fuji apples and drizzled with cream cheese cinnamon icing.

Every year apple season (aka fall) brings with it a wave of nostalgia, and I can’t help but reminisce about the autumns of my youth. Growing up in Virginia fall meant the leaves turned from green to lovely shades of vibrant orange, red, yellow and deep purple. Along with the cool air, fall also brought with it loads of glorious apples. The house I grew up in had 2 apple trees, 2 peach trees, 2 cherry trees and 2 seckel pear tree in the front yard, thus we never had a shortage of fresh fruit to feast on throughout the growing season. While my family never made these particular cinnamon apple pecan crumb bars, they certainly have the flavors that I associate with fall. There’s just something so comforting about the combination of cinnamon and apples. Between Tyler, our neighbor and Nicole & Justin these bars were gone almost as soon as they were made! They’re super simple and sure to be a great fall crowd pleaser.