Apple Caramel: Spilled Milk #271

Three easy recipes for the apple-obsessed: apple caramel, apple sauce and apple crumb cake.

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Everyone loves apples.

I love them so much I gave you a bonus recipe or two! But first, some history…

From the Garden of Eden to the “apple a day” concept, apples have come to symbolize health, wellness, fertility, good, evil, esotericism, erotica, the sacred feminine, the occult and the ordinary. The golden apples in the Garden of Hesperides conferred immortality, as they also did in the Celtic and Scandinavian pantheons. Alexander the Great thought they were the keystone to procuring longevity, Paris awarded the golden apple in the beauty contest that started the Trojan War, ancient Egyptian priests believed them to hold sacred knowledge and even Snow White would have had an opinion on them if anyone asked her. Today, apples are a less contentious subject than they were a few thousand years ago.

Apples number almost 10,000 species, the result of a global agribusiness and the good fortune of grafting techniques discovered 1,200 years ago that allowed apple types to be easily combined, creating hearty fruit bearing strains the world over. Apples are dried, cooked, pickled, turned into sauce, juiced and used to create a host of boozy delights, but our association with apples is especially strong when we are young.

Perhaps it is the delight of eating an apple picked in an orchard or that our parents seem to have handed us all an apple at an early age and sent us scurrying back to whatever it was we were doing. Maybe it is the common practice of serving apple sauce to toddlers, who can say.

What is important is that apples are one of the easiest ingredients to work with in the kitchen, and because of their popularity with the young set, they are an easy way to get your kids into the kitchen. Over the last 50 years, the kitchen has ceased to be the center of daily life, and we are the worse off for it. We have let our most important tool for bonding—shared meal times—slip away. We have lost the values so necessary to living a fulfilled life because we have no format for connecting and trading information with each other. The best place to start is with your own kids in your own kitchen. Set aside one day a week and cook with your kids. Try some of these easy apple recipes, dig out some of your old ones and get back into the kitchen with your children. You’ll find that kids who cook and participate in food decisions around the house are less finicky eaters, eat healthier than their non-cooking counterparts and socialize more easily.

Apples 101

Apples really are good for you. Their nutritional profile (vitamins such as A and C and minerals) and phytochemical concentration (carcinogen-fighting antioxidants, carotenoids and flavonoids) is impressive, and in a carb-conscious era, their glycemic index is beneficial as well. An apple’s sweetness is due to a high level of fructose, which does not create the insulin spike associated with many unhealthy sweeteners such as refined sugar when consumed. The resulting insulin modulation leads to the cessation of hunger, limits stored fats and helps raise HDL levels (good cholesterol).

Apples range in color from lemony yellow to ruby red, from emerald greens to blushing pinks. Their flavors when eaten aren’t nearly so strikingly disparate but do vary in taste from tart to sweet and in texture from a near melon-like softness to explosive crispness. The most popular apple in the USA is the Red Delicious, prized by commercial growers and supermarket owners for its shelf stability, but it has a lousy unbalanced flavor profile: Too thick a skin, it’s high in sweetness and low in acid. I prefer balanced flavor profiles on my apples and eat most of my fruit by hand. It seems every week a different apple is fresh off the tree at the farmers’ market or available in the orchards. Apple species vary from state to state, but I group apples this way:

For eating straight up, nothing beats the thin skin and explosive crisp-tart sweetness of a Honeycrisp, but Sawas, Zestars and many others come real close. Try Redfree and Gala in August, Jonathans and McIntosh in September and Chestnut, Braeburn, Haralson and Enterprise later on at the end of the season.

For processing into sauce or for jams and butters, I like to use the same apples I use for long-term cooking or baking. Look for apples that hold their shape if you are using whole apples in cooking. I like Lodi, Golden Delicious, Baldwin, Cortland, Ida Red, Northern Spy, Rome, Pippin, Greening, York Imperial and Winesap. All are good choices. Try talking to your local apple growers, too. For example, McIntosh in Vermont have a more reliable texture and cooking profile (consistently crisp hand-eating and a lousy apple for baking) than McIntosh in Minnesota. If you can get them, try baking with Arkansas Black apples which are uniquely tart sweet, same for Mutsu and Crispin.

Some apples are best used only in cooking and processing and not suited to eating out of hand. Lodi, Northern Spy, Rome and Jonalicious, to name a few.  For making apple sauce, go for Golden Delicious paired with Spartans or Winesap. The superb balance of tart and sweet with a full-in-the-mouth texture will amaze you.

Apples are best consumed in season and eaten expeditiously. When choosing apples at the grocery store, remember that apples do get a shade sweeter as they age after picking but only in the short term (several weeks). Long-term storage after picking (anything over a month) can render an apples texture mushy, mealy or starchy. Apples can be stored at home in a cool dark place. They do well in the fridge and can be stored in plastic bags in an area without temperature fluctuations. Temperature changes cause beading and perspiring, which leads to spoilage. Apples harvested late in the season (such as Fujis in October) last longer after picking than early season apples such as Galas picked in August. Apples should always be firm to the touch and never musty smelling. Apples should have a brisk, floral aroma. Skins should be free of bruising and nicks, but scalds (apple-speak for the brownish scarring that mottles some skins) are not an issue of quality.

Recipe: Apple Caramel