Pomegranate Glazed Apple Strudel Squares
You don’t need the mixer for this recipe, it is easily hand done.and this smells amazing while baking!
Ingredients
4 cups flour
1 ½ cups trans fat free or reduced margarine
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
7 medium sized any kind apples
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Pomegranate Glaze
1 ½ cups powdered (icing or confectioners) sugar (don’t use regular white sugar it will not work!)
2 ½ Tablespoon oil
1/8 teaspoon lemon juice
4-5 Tablespoons hot pomegranate juice or syrup (you can use a pomegranate drink such as “Spring” brand to save some money)
Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C.
In a large bowl, combine the flour and trans fat free margarine. Cut it together until it is crumbly. Add the sugar and mix a bit again. Check the eggs and beat them slightly with a fork in the glass they’re in. Add to the flour mix and combine all until you have a chunky, dry looking crumble mixture. Take off almost ¾ of this mixture and pat it down firmly into a large pan, about 11×14 in or a 16×10 inches. (It’s about one and a half times the size of an ordinary 9×13 pan.)
For the apples, whichever kind you choose will give this recipe a different flavor each time you do it. Myself, I just use up whatever old apples I have sitting in the fridge, so mine was made with a combo of all three colors of apples. It came out delicious.
Peel the apples and slice them/ pare them by hand into a large bowl. Sprinkle the lemon juice over them. Combine the ½ cup sugar and the cinnamon together over the apples and toss the whole mixture so it is coated evenly. Place this apple mixture all over the top of the crumbs in your pan. After it’s even, crumble over it the rest of the crumbs mixture. You may want to crumble the remaining crumbs a bit more by hand before sprinkling all over so you will be left with less lumpy pieces after it bakes on top of it.
Bake for 45 minutes until it is slightly golden all over and a drop darker by the edges. Remove from the oven and let it cool. After it’s cooled, cut it into squares and set aside.
Pomegranate Glaze
Place the pomegranate juice / syrup into a glass and heat it in the microwave for 40 seconds on high. Alternately, place the glass it’s in into a bowl of hot water to warm it up. It does need to be hot in order to turn into a good glaze. Put the powdered sugar in a plastic bowl, add in the oil and lemon juice. Add in the first 3 T. of hot pomegranate liquid. Start to mix it with a spoon. It should begin to thicken almost immediately. If it’s too thick, add more hot liquid by small, very small, increments until it is thick enough to drip but is not runny. If it’s too thin, add small amounts more of powdered sugar and keep mixing by hand until it is a nice thick, but not too firm consistency. Take your spoon and drizzle it all over in thin lines on top of your by-now-cooled-down apple strudel squares. There’s no food coloring in this picture, this is really how it comes out when using pomegranate liquid. Enjoy! This can be frozen in the pan until the day of use. Just remove it from the freezer about 3 hours before you need it, then present your squares on a nice platter or in cupcake holders, and serve.
