• Prepare your pan by lining both side with parchment paper making sure the parchment paper overlaps the dish by about 2 inches. This makes easy lifting handles later.

Apple Filling

• Add your sliced apples, cinnamon, sugar, vanilla and lemon juice to a large bowl and mix well then set aside.
  3 Large granny smith or honey crisp apples, 4 tablespoon Granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon Lemon Juice, ½ teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 ½ teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

Shortbread Bars

• Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
• Line your 9x13-inch pan with parchment paper so your shortbread comes out easy after baking.
• In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, combine the butter sugar (brown and white) and beat until smooth.
  1 ½ cups unsalted butter, ½ cup light brown sugar, ½ cup granulated white sugar
• Next, add your vanilla and salt and mix that in.
  1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon salt
• Now, add your all purpose flour into the butter mixture and mix on low-speed until the mixture starts to form a ball (about 2-3 minutes) .
  3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• Divide your dough in half.
• Press one half of the dough into the bottom of the prepared pan to form the bottom crust. If there are any areas that need patching, grab some shortbread dough from the half that you just divided and use that to patch up the bottom crust to make sure there is crust all the way to the corner of the pan.
• Now cover and wrap the other half and place in the refrigerator until later.
• Bake the crust until it is just beginning to turn light brown, around 20 minutes.
• Remove the pan from the oven and let cool for a few minutes.
• With a slotted spoon (you don't want any extra juices that formed from letting them sit), scoop out the apple filling and distribute it evenly over the top of the shortbread crust.
  12 oz apple filling
• Now, take your reserved half of the shortbread out of the refrigerator and crumble the dough over the apples to make your crumble topping, being careful to not have really large pieces.
• Return the pan to the oven and continue baking for another 30-35 minutes until the crumble topping turns golden in color.
• Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for 15 minutes.
• After 15 minutes, gently lift out the bars by the parchment paper and place on the wire rack and allow to fully cool (about 1 hour).
• Once cooled, your can slice up your apple bars and serve!