Happy World Dulce de Leche Day!

I love delicious, arbitrary holidays and that’s why I decided a few weeks ago, on World Nutella Day, that there should also be a World Dulce de Leche Day.  Patience is not my strong suit so I couldn’t wait any longer than the end of February to declare a second gooey, sticky, food centred holiday.  February 28th has arrived and that means that if all has gone according to plan, there should be a spike in food blog posts about dulce de leche and the world will be a sweeter place today.  If you’re one of the lovely people who have chosen to wax poetically, or otherwise, about the virtues of dulce de leche, send me a link to your post and I’ll do a round up of goodness at the end of the week.

I’ve been swimming in dulce de leche for the past month and have actually made a few things that didn’t make it onto the blog because I ate it all before taking a photo.  Like the dulce de leche frozen yogurt.  I just couldn’t stopping dipping a spoon into the freezer for a little taste and before I knew it I was scraping the bottom of the container.  But I did manage to take a photo of these Dulce de Leche Apple Bars.  The recipe comes from Recipe Girl and originally called for a browned butter icing, but I switched it to a cream cheese dulce de leche icing, to double up on the dulce de leche.  The bars are cakey and moist, with juicy chunks of apple and the complex sweet taste of dulce de leche.  They’re pretty fantastic and completely worthy of World Dulce de Leche Day!  Hope yours is delicious!

Dulce de Leche Apple Bars, (Adapted from Recipe Girl)

1½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp baking soda
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
½ cup butter (1 stick), softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1½ cups chopped, peeled apples
½ cup dulce de leche

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 9×9-inch square baking pan.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until fluffy.
4. Stir flour mixture into sugar mixture, just until combined. Carefully stir in apples.
5. Spoon 2/3 of the batter into the prepared pan. Drop dulce de leche by heaping Tablespoons over batter. Drag a butter knife through dulce de leche to swirl through the batter. Drop remaining batter over dulce de leche.
6. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until browned and firm to touch. Let cool completely.
7. When cool, ice with your choice of icing, click over to Recipe Girl's site for her browned butter icing, I didn't follow a recipe, I just mixed together cream cheese, butter, dulce de leche, icing sugar and cream until it looked like icing... Sorry for the randomness.
8. For cleanest cuts, chill completely and slice into the bars with a sharp, thin knife. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.