Made some appple sauce tonight. What a challenge, our apples are wormy, buggy
By writersedge
@writersedge (22563)
United States
August 17, 2008 8:22pm CST
and scabby, so it took about a bushel to make a peck of apples to put into apple sauce which is now about 4 scant cups of applesauce. I put a small amount of water, a little bit of cinnamon sugar, small amount of lemon juice, and a small pat of butter. They came out wonderfully tart (lemon juice), sweet/spicy (cinnamon sugar), and rich (butter). Sometimes I just put apples and water, but these apples needed help.
So do you make apple sauce from apples? Buy the apple sauce in the store? Have nice apples or challenging ones? Besides water and apples, do you put anything in your apple sauce? Do you peel the apples or leave the peels on? I didn't leave much for peels on because the peels were in bad shape, but sometimes I leave the peels on.
I was hoping to have enough to make apple butter, but not this year so far. We have other trees that may provide some apples for apple butter. I did get enough one year for apple butter. Actually I really, really wanted juice for apple mint jelly. I may still get some juice from the store and do that. The applesauce has cooled off so I must put it in the fridge right now, so if you'll excuse me, I must go. Please relate your apple sauce stories/knowledge. Thank you.
1 person likes this
3 responses
@suspenseful (40193)
• Canada
19 Aug 08
We did not make apple sauce this year, but usually I make it when we have apples, because they are like yours wormy and buggy. So I was thinking of firing the birds. They are not doing their job. I usually cut up the apples and put them in a saucepan with a little water and asorbic acid. I do not put any sugar in them as I substitute applesauce for part of the fat in my cooking and I give it to the church when we have our fall supper and many of the members are diabetic. I tried making pies with the sliced apples, but the apples are mainly juice apples, so what I do is to make some sweetened applesauce, add sugar, and put them into a baked pie crust, put some butter on top, and then I crumble a baked pie crust, add some brown sugar and butter and press it on top.
1 person likes this
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
19 Aug 08
I knew there was a pie person out there!
That's the wonderful thing about cooking from scratch, you can taylor everything to the needs of the people you're cooking for. Brown sugar and butter makes pies so much better, don't they? The other day, I just saw a recipe for a pie with a crumble top, hadn't seen one before. Seems like a neat time saver and patience saver, doesn't it?
Thanks and take care.
1 person likes this
@suspenseful (40193)
• Canada
20 Aug 08
They call it Dutch Apple Pie. It is a time saver and if you have apples that are juice apples, it is a good way to make them into pies. Now this year, there are no apples, well just two or three, but mostly leaves.
1 person likes this
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
20 Aug 08
Dutch apple anything means something different here. It's made with corn syrup and has a really smooth taste to it. Also the apples are still a little on the firm side.
We had few or no apples one year, it was because of a lack of bees. We had a beekeeper move in down the road from us. It's wonderful! He has small bees that go around you and from flower to flower. Take care and thanks for the response.
@brimia (6581)
• United States
18 Aug 08
Yum, I love homemade applesauce and apple butter. I'll hopefully be getting a bunch of apples from my parents' trees this year. It's a lot of work prepping the apples to make sauce. Their apples are always "challenging". My dad makes apple juice and he tends to leave a lot of "bad spots" on them. My mom, on the other hand, makes applesauce and is much pickier about her apples.
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
19 Aug 08
Crisp apples are great! Also baked apple crisp is terrrific (funny how different the meaning based on teh order). Sounds like you've got some great plans for those apples. Thanks.
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
19 Aug 08
An apple processing family, how wonderful! The family the processes apples together, stays together (plagerized and added my own). Sounds great. So what will you do with the apples?
@PearlGrace (3171)
• United States
18 Aug 08
Hi writersedge.
Wow, you've been busy with all those apples! I used to love making homemade applesauce in my old Rival Crockpot. Several years ago, I had 4 apple trees in my back yard and I tried to use as many of those apples as I could. I'd throw it all in the crockpot the night before, and set it to cook on low overnight. In the morning, the smell of fresh applesauce permeated the house. And voila! Fresh, hot applesauce for breakfast.
I always peeled the apples first and they were the smaller, tart apples, probably Jonathans.
I think I made apple butter only 1 year. I made plenty of apple pies with those apples. I haven't done much with fresh apples over the last 20 years or more. A rare apple pie, I do saute apples to serve with a pork recipe I cook once in a great while.
Good luck with all your apple preparations.
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
19 Aug 08
Yes, I was busy. Picking them, cutting out the good parts, cooking, adding stuff to taste and I also made biscuits for my husband to put the applesauce on. He had some sauce hot and some cold.
It's too bad you're not doing more with them now. Esp. with the price of everything these days.
Jonathons! How wonderful! We love sour apples, they're so good in pies, apple butter, cooked and sweetened. My husband loves sour apples.
The new honey crisps that taste like a pear apple are great to eat out of hand. Thanks and take care.
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
19 Aug 08
Never thought to put them in a crockpot!~Must be wonderful to wake up to that smell!
