Caramel Apple Kugel

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When I set out last week to make a somewhat traditional Rosh Hashanah meal to enjoy with my semi-observant husband, I felt a bit of a knot in my belly. What if I get it wrong and ruin Rosh Hashanah? Dramatic, I know, but this is me. I have no Jewish heritage myself— at least not that I’m aware of— and I always worry that my effort might be disrespectful to someone else’s tradition. Les says this is silly, and has at times even suggested that in all my diligence, I might even be more Jewish than he is.

Still, I gave much thought to our meal for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and I settled on roasted chicken with a bevy of root vegetables, including carrots, red potatoes and parsnips with a simple pan dripping gravy. Delicious! And for dessert, kugel, made with noodles, sugar, eggs and various forms of dairy. I want to emphasize that in a kosher household, this dessert would not be served with chicken because Jewish dietary law prohibits meat and dairy together on the table. This rule is born from the commandments in Exodus and Deuteronomy that you should not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk— which over time expanded to “no kind of meat with any kind of dairy, even if said meat doesn’t make milk.” Don’t blame me, I don’t make these rules.

Our meal was delicious and fully representative of autumn, especially with this kugel, with all the flavors of a sweet caramel apple from the county fair.

This smelled sooo good from the oven!

Apples are traditional at Rosh Hashanah, usually paired with honey and symbolic for sweet wishes in the new year. I had been thinking about apples and caramel together in a dessert after spotting a caramel apple display at the supermarket. Kugel is a dish perfected by the Ashkenazi (ASH-kuh-NAH-zee) Jews of Eastern Europe, and it is a blank canvas of sorts for any combination of sweet ingredients. It may seem strange the first time you make one; I mean, noodles in a dessert? But trust me, it’s delicious!

Here’s how my dish came together. Enjoy!

The caramel

Now, I may not be Jewish, but I come from a long line of improvisers, and my instinct told me that dulce de leche, a thick, rich caramel sauce, would be a reasonable stand-in for most of the sugar in the basic kugel recipe I had found, and for some portion of the milk as well. I blended the thick dulce de leche with cream cheese, cottage cheese, milk, eggs, sour cream and vanilla, and folded in the buttered egg noodles, hoping that some measure of Ashkenazi wisdom would emanate from the wooden spoon that we had rescued from Les’s mother’s condo after she passed. Surely the spoon had done this before.

Think of it as bread pudding, but with noodles instead of bread!

The apples

My doubts set in again about the apples because kugel is usually dotted with dried fruits such as raisins, prunes or apricots. Should I cook the apples first? Or dice them up and stir them into the custardy noodles, or would the moisture cause the whole thing to become a big mess? In the end, I decided to par-bake the noodle custard, top it with thin slices of apple and a sprinkling of brown sugar and cinnamon and then bake it again. It turned out to be just the right amount of apple, and the brown sugar-cinnamon topping emphasized the caramel flavors inside.

Adding the apple topping

This kugel was very well-received by my hubby, who had made his own version of kugel a few years back when we were clearing out the pantry for our kitchen remodel. We enjoyed this caramel apple version at Rosh Hashanah and again straight from the fridge later in the week, and I think we may even have a couple of slices left for our “break the fast” meal when Yom Kippur ends tonight.

Shana Tova!

Caramel Apple Kugel

  • Servings: 12
  • Difficulty: Average
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Jewish New Year calls for a celebratory dessert, and I chose apples and caramel to bring in some comforting fall flavors.


Ingredients

  • 8 oz. cream cheese, softened to room temperature
  • 1 cup small curd cottage cheese
  • 1/2 cup (or more) dulce de leche
  • 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup sour cream (or plain Greek yogurt)
  • 1 1/2 cups whole milk
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 12 oz. package extra wide egg noodles
  • 6 Tbsp. butter, room temperature (I used salted)
  • 1 large Honeycrisp apple, cored and cut into thin slices
  • 1 Tbsp. brown sugar, mixed with 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Notes: Dulce de leche is usually found in a can, in the same supermarket section as sweetened condensed milk, or possibly in the Hispanic section. If you cannot find this product, a thick, milk-based caramel ice cream topping would work fine.

Directions

  1. Add cream cheese, cottage cheese and dulce de leche to the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment. Blend together on speed 2 or 3 for about two minutes, or until the mixture is evenly combined.
  2. Add brown sugar and sour cream, whisking on low speed until blended. Gradually pour the milk into the bowl while the mixer is running, to avoid splashing. Add the eggs, one at a time and then stir in vanilla.
  3. Meanwhile, cook the egg noodles until just tender, according to package instructions. Drain the noodles and toss with butter until fully melted.
  4. Pour the caramel mixture into the warm noodles and toss to combine. It will seem very liquid-y. Transfer this mixture to a buttered 9 x 13 glass baking dish and spread it out until even. Cover the dish and refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight.
  5. Preheat oven to 350° F, with rack in center position.
  6. Uncover kugel and use the back of a spoon to press down any noodles that have emerged from the caramel custard mixture. Bake uncovered for 35 minutes. Remove from oven, arrange sliced apples evenly over the top and sprinkle the surface with the brown sugar-cinnamon mixture. Return to oven for 15 more minutes.
  7. Cool to room temperature before enjoying, and refrigerate leftovers. When chilled, the kugel can be cut easily into squares and served almost like brownies.

Just for grins

As desserts go, this one packs a substantial amount of protein with cream cheese, cottage cheese, eggs, sour cream and milk. It also doesn’t have as much sugar as you might expect, with only three tablespoons, plus the sugar in the dulce de leche. Les and I got into a lukewarm debate about the protein content of this dish, with him asserting that the ingredients are spread out across 12 portions, making each portion skimpy on protein. I disagreed, so I did the math to bolster my case and here’s the result:

INGREDIENTPROTEIN GRAMS
cream cheese, full-fat16
cottage cheese, 2%28
whole milk12
dulce de leche6
eggs18
sour cream, full-fat4
noodles(this number surprised me!) 40
butter2
Total grams protein126
divided by 12 servings10.5

Each square contains 10 1/2 grams of protein, significantly more than you can say for most desserts. A serving of vanilla ice cream, for example, typically contains 2 to 3 grams and a slice of chocolate cake is around 4 grams. I’m not claiming this to be a health food by any stretch of imagination. The fat and sugar content are high, and there are irrefutable downsides to that. I’m only suggesting that this could be considered something of a power dessert, if there is such a thing. 😉

Caramel Apple Blondies

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What is it about Autumn that everyone finds so appealing? It is easy to imagine that I’m among the majority when it comes to fall being my favorite season. Everyone I know seems to mention that it’s theirs also, so I did a little investigating to see if this is just confirmation bias or a birds-of-a-feather situation. Let’s see what the data says.

A survey reported by CBS says as many as 45% of Americans favor fall over the other three seasons combined. And another poll by Morning Consult—a business intelligence company that specializes in survey data— breaks it down into deeper demographics to reveal that Autumn is the clear favorite, especially among women, especially Gen Xers, and especially in the South. That’s me, on all three counts!

No wonder I get so excited about cooler temperatures, boots, sweaters and pumpkin spice. Indeed, this is my favorite time of year, and I’ve put a new spin on one of my own recipes to highlight one of the season’s best flavors, apple. And, in honor of all the state and county fairs that are happening this time of year, I thought it fitting to wrap a little caramel around the apple for even more nostalgia.

My caramel apple blondies are a deliciously sweet, caramel apple-y treat that’s perfect for a Halloween party, a gift for a favorite teacher or new neighbor, or just tucked into your grandkid’s lunch box.

It took great restraint not to cut into them straight from the oven!

What ingredients are in caramel apple blondies?

A blondie is essentially a cookie bar, with a dense, chewy texture and often includes some kind of fun mix-in, such as chocolate chips or nuts. Similar to a brownie, but without chocolate, a blondie is made from a dough that resembles the base of a chocolate chip cookie, with plenty of butter, brown sugar, egg, vanilla, flour and leavening, such as baking powder.

For this recipe, I’ve leveraged the same technique as in last year’s pumpkin chai blondies, using a concentrated paste of cooked down apples this time— otherwise known as apple butter— to give a distinct apple flavor without the high amount of moisture that would have been in fresh chopped apples. The caramel element is an easy grocery store item, the same stuff you pick up in the produce department for dipping apple slices. 

I had just made a small batch of apple butter, but store bought would be great. The caramel dip was easy peasy.

To keep these blondies a bit “healthy-ish,” I subbed in a half amount of whole wheat pastry flour. And in case you wonder why the melted butter is soooo dark in the pan in my ingredients photo, it’s because I tried a new (and very flavorful) trick when I made my browned butter.

Check out that very browned butter!

How to make browned butter even better

If you spend any time at all on social media or the internet, you may have seen this new trend of adding powdered milk to the butter as it browns. Given that it’s the milk solids that actually brown, it stands to reason that increasing the milk solids will amp up the flavor. And holy moly, it sure did! I used salted butter, by the way, though most baking recipes call for unsalted. Why? Because salt in desserts does the same thing as salt in savory dishes— it shoves the most important flavors to the forefront.

The powdered milk is a secret weapon for the most incredible browned butter. I’ll never do it any other way!

How do you make caramel apple blondies?

The rest of the recipe is very simple. Mix together the melted butter and brown sugar, then add the egg, apple butter and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients, half at a time, mixing only until all the flour is incorporated. 

The blondie batter comes together really quickly.

Spread the batter evenly into a buttered, parchment-lined pan, then spoon and swirl a bit of warmed caramel dip over the top. Scatter a few tablespoons of Heath candy bits on top and bake until the blondies test done with a clean toothpick.

If you prefer, swap in chopped pecans for the Heath toffee candy bits.

Cool the blondies completely before cutting them, and if you really want to push them over the top, serve them with a scoop of my easy cinnamon ice cream. We enjoyed them this way, and I got so excited, I completely forgot to take a picture. But you can imagine, right? 😉

Caramel Apple Blondies

  • Servings: 12 or 16
  • Difficulty: Average
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Caramel and apples reminds me of the treats I used to look forward to at the county fair. These blondies are just one of many reasons I'm excited about fall.


Ingredients

  • 2 sticks salted butter
  • 2 Tbsp. nonfat dry milk powder
  • 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 1 large egg (room temperature)
  • 1 cup apple butter (homemade or store bought)
  • 2 tsp. real vanilla extract
  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (see notes for measure instructions)
  • 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or sub in regular all-purpose flour if desired)
  • 3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
  • 3/4 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/4 cup caramel dip (find in the produce section, near the apples)
  • 1/4 cup Heath candy bits (optional, sub chopped pecans if desired)

Notes: Unsalted butter can be used, if that’s what you have on hand; double the kosher salt if you go this route.

When measuring flour, use the “fluff, sprinkle, level” method rather than scooping directly into the bag or container.

Directions

  1. Place the butter in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan over medium heat. Stir frequently, and when melted butter begins to brown, add the dry milk powder. Stir constantly, as the browning will happen quickly at that point. Remove from heat as soon as the butter reaches a copper color. Transfer to a measuring cup to cool.
  2. Preheat oven to 350° F, with oven rack in center position. Prepare a 9 x 13″ baking pan with a buttered parchment liner, leaving flaps on the long sides for easy lifting of baked blondies.
  3. In a large mixing bowl (or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle), stir together browned butter and brown sugar until evenly blended. Add apple butter and egg. Beat until combined and somewhat fluffy.
  4. In a medium bowl, whisk together flours with cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Add half the flour mixture to the apple mixture, folding just until all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Repeat with remaining flour blend. The batter will be very thick and dense.
  5. Spread batter evenly over parchment. Warm the caramel dip slightly in the microwave for easier swirling. Pipe or spoon caramel dip over batter and swirl with a chopstick or spoon handle. Sprinkle on Heath candy bits.
  6. Bake for 25 minutes, or until blondies are set but not overly dry. Remember that they will continue to cook for a few minutes after removal. As with brownies, the type of pan may affect the outcome. For a glass pan, add a few extra minutes to the baking time.
  7. Cool for at least 30 minutes before using parchment flaps to lift blondies from the pan. Cut into squares for serving. Keep leftover blondies wrapped or in a sealed container at room temperature for up to three days.