The Deer Hunter came in carrying a huge box of apples the other day. One of the suppliers in town gifted him with the apples as a way of saying thank you and Merry Christmas all at the same time. The girls eat some sort of quinoa concoction for breakfast and they always put apples in it and I’ve been taking one to work with me to eat as a snack so we’ve been eating the apples as fast as we can.
Thinking I needed to find a recipe to use up more of the apples I stumbled on this one. The recipe is fairly simple to make especially if you have a mandolin to cut the apples really thin. I wondered how the ingredients would meld themselves into a bar, but they did and oh my are they good. I think using parchment paper is a must-I don’t know how you’d get them out of the pan otherwise. You can jump over to the website and print the recipe here. I know I’ll be making these for years to come.
Tipper
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Tipper at our house , we can’t keep them. We eat em to fast. Lol That sure does look good.
Tipper we had an old apple tree that blew over years ago and the tree now came from a sprout and had the best fall cooking apples I tried to give the apples to a lot of people no one wanted to take them so I made some of the whitest applesauce and made apple butter my recipe was peel 3 quarts of cut up and microwave 15minutes and take out microwave put in food processor blend and add with sugar and spices to taste and microwave 5 minutes put it in jars and put your lids and hot water bath to secure dealing Very good applebutter
Mmmm-Mmmm those apple bars look so good! I agree that grocery store apples just have no flavor. I did get some really good ones at Food lion called Lady Alice, they are very good!
I love good apples but they are not easy to come by. Shirl is right, the grocery store apples look good but they have no flavor. My favorite apple is Mutsu. I have to go to an orchard to find them.
Tip your picture and recipe look wonderful, have you got any left?
My mom always laughed while telling us she never got to eat a fresh apple as a child. Twelve children, and even with apple orchards they had to be frugal. They were allowed to eat the ones that fell, and often had to cut out overly ripe sections. They stored only the best in the root cellar which were later stretched to make cobblers and pies for the huge family. Hours were spent peeling and canning. So, even with the plentiful apple harvest, it had to last through the cold winter. A fresh unblemished apple was a luxury they were not allowed. Later the multitude of grandchildren had strict rules on the farm, and some of us tried to push the rules as far as possible. It has long been a humorous family story how I climbed up on a shed and managed to eat an apple while leaving it hanging from the tree. I had figured a way to not break the rule of not picking apples from Grandpa’s trees. I still call my uncle the farm police, because he would check the stems of our apples to make certain they were not freshly picked. Grandpa had to have rules or all those grandchildren and children would have destroyed his apple trees. Even with his rules he was possibly the most good natured person I ever knew.
You are so inventive and resourceful, Tipper, and it is enjoyable to read about the tasty dishes you make from all of nature’s bounty. I will have to try these.
My, that looks GOOD, Tipper! In November when I went to the nearby small orchard for my annual cider-and-apples stock up, I was floored when the owner said she had no apples to sell. It was a terrible year with all the weeks of rain, and apparently she even had to buy in more apples from other growers to make the cider. I bought 4 gallons instead of my usual 8, so as not to be greedy when the supply was short, but I’m really going to miss eating and cooking with the heritage apples I look forward to every year.
Most of the store bought apples don’t taste like apples I remember from my childhood. Of course they were picked from the family orchard, wrapped in newspaper and saved for a special day. I lost the best apple tree ever during the ice storm of 2009. I don’t know what kind it was but the previous owner said it was here when he bought the farm in 1952.
I’ve been drying apples lately and my kids and grandkids have been eating them as fast as I can crank them out. My latest creation is a cinnamon spiced apple crisp. I start with the sweetest apples I can find. I peel them, core them, and slice them very thin. I have a mandolin but I play it, ha ha. I do really have both but I slice with a very sharp paring knife. An average apple yields 48 half slices. I could go thinner but the apples tend to stick a little to the dehydrator and so sometimes break when I try to turn them over or take them out. The broken pieces are just as good but I guess I am picky.
After I slice the apples I soak them a while in water with lemon juice (to cut down on browning) and the same combination of spices I would put in an apple pie. I don’t add sugar but I use a little bit of light corn syrup. Not for flavor but it seems to help bind the spices to the apple slices. Then it is on the the dehydrator for up to twelve hours (or more) until they are as crispy as a potato chip with no frying and no oil. They are like eating a little bite of crunchy apple pie.
I get a fourfer when I dry apples in the fall. I, of course, get delicious dried apples but also get heat, humidity and a wonderful smell in the process.
I used to make dried apples all the time when my two girls were young. I put cinnamon on them and put the thin slices in the dehydrator until they were crisp. A batch never lasted long.
Apple crisp, apple “brown betty,” apple pie, fried apples, Waldorf salad — oh, my, did Mom fix apples!
Cooking for just me, I don’t use as many, but I love them!
Mom spent summers at the farm on Hurricane Crk in KY with her Grampaw . She helped pick & store apples that they took back to town in the fall. Mom said he insisted that they eat or cook the bruised ones beginning to rot first. As a result, they ate rotten apples all winter!
Grandma Cate, that was funny. They ate rotten apples all winter. My Dad always said eat your best first and you would always have your best.
Aw-that’s exactly what Pap always said “Always use your best first and you’ll always be using your best.” 🙂
Sounds good to me. I am about ready to decide apples are the Christmas fruit instead of oranges or tangerines, for me anyway. I went yesterday and bought the third bag of Stayman Winesaps, my favorite. No mandolin here though.
Does a carmel apple bar a day keep the doctor away?
Ron-Maybe 🙂