The quest to finish a big bag of apples
September 29th, 2009
Hey there! Do you realize there’s only a few days left to sign up for Small Group Wellness Coaching? This phone-based group is open to anyone, anywhere. Get support to get healthy – sign up now!
Ah, New England in the fall. It’s that rare window of beautiful days before cruel winter leans in with a smirk and says, “Thanks, I’ll take it from here.”
New Englanders look at the gorgeous blue sky and leaves barely tinged with orange and we long to soak up the last bits of sun. Then we all have the same idea: Apple picking! Orchards become overrun with children sucking down cider donuts every weekend until the trees are bare. And I wonder…are these apples organic?
Whether your apples come from the U-PICK orchard or the local supermarket, I bet you have a few in your house right now. Maybe more than I few. I had a whole big bag. What’s a girl to do?
Butternut Apple Bread (pictured above)
This bread is delicious and moist! Sucanat is a very unrefined form of sugar – it still contains its molasses. Don’t be fooled by “Sugar in the Raw” or brown sugar – that stuff is much more refined, similar to white sugar.
For topping:
1 Tbl. whole wheat flour
3 Tbl. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 Tbl. butter, softened
For bread:
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose white flour
3/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
3 cups butternut puree*
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup Sucanat
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped
*Wash a medium sized butternut squash and cut lengthwise. Remove seeds. Roast with flat side down, in a baking pan with 1/4″ water for 1 hour at 400 degrees. Remove from oven when skin is soft and easy pierced with a fork. Discard stem. Everything else goes in the food processor. Pulse until pureed.
For the topping: Blend together ingredients in a small bowl with your fingertips until mixture becomes pebbly.
Put a rack in the middle of oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter two 9 X 5 inch loaf pans.
Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice into a large bowl. Then add butternut puree, butter, Sucanat, and eggs. Stir until well combined. Fold in apples. Divide batter between loaf pans. Sprinkle half of topping evenly over each loaf. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of bread comes out clean, about 60 minutes.
Cool loves in pans on a rack for 45 minutes, then turn out onto rack and cool for another hour.
Hearts o’ Apples
These hearts are best when the apples are sliced thin and the jam is spread thick.
For the crust:
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 Tbl. ground flax seed
1 Tbl. Sucanat
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1/2-3/4 cup very cold water
For the filling:
1-2 apples, peeled, cored and sliced super thin
2 Tbl. Sucanat
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
6-8 tsp. jam or jelly, any flavor you like
spray-able oil (like Pam, though I hate Pam)
In a large bowl, combine flour, Sucanat and salt. Add the butter, 1 large pat at a time. Using two knives, cut the butter into the flour until the dough is crumbly.
In a measuring cup, combine vinegar with water. Add to the flour mixture slowly, mixing it in with a fork until the dough holds together when pinched. Add up to another 1/4 cup water if needed.
Create a ball with the dough and knead a few times. Flatten the ball a bit and refrigerate for 30 minutes. On a clean, floured surface, roll out refrigerated dough to 1/4″ thick. Use a butter knife to create 4 heart shapes in the dough, about 8″ in height. Gather scraps of dough together, roll out again, and cut 2 more hearts. Place on lightly greased baking sheets.
Pinch the edges of each heart all the way around to create a ridge. This will keep your jelly from slipping off the side! With a butter knife on a slight angle, gently score these edges to secure in place.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Slice your apples and spread jam in each crust. Place apple slices on both sides of the heart, slightly overlapping. Spray with a bit of oil to keep the apples from drying out. Sprinkle with Sucanat. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
Baked Apple Explosion
This is my version of baked apples. Because all but 2 of them exploded in the oven! Who cares? I mixed ‘em up in a bowl and served as a pudding.
6 apples, washed and cored
Filling options: maple syrup, raisins, cinnamon, banana slices, peanut butter, jelly, or anything your heart desires
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
To core the apples, use a melon baller to scoop out stem and down to the core a little at a time. Or, use a paring knife to make a hole in the top of the apple and dig out about 2″ of the core, including seeds.
Fill apples and place in a baking dish with 1/4″ water. Cover with foil. Bake for 30-40 minutes. If they don’t explode, great! If they do scrape the contents of the pan into a bowl and mix to create a lovely dairy-free pudding.
Apple Cider Water Kefir
Since apple cider has a fermented taste to it, I decided to try apples in my water kefir. For this batch I used white sugar with a drop of blackstrap molasses, and one peeled apple. It tasted just like apple cider! Wanna try? Check out details on water kefir here.
So what’s up with that saying anyway – “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”? Is that a general reminder to eat fresh produce? Or is there something in particular about apples we’re talking about here, like the vitamin C or fiber? Other than that, apples are just a lot of natural sugar. But they do make for a fun baking ingredient. Happy fall!
This post is part of Real Food Wednesdays.
