Harvest time means a tasty festival of apples | Kitchen to Kitchen

From straight to the table or a detour into the dehydrator or slow cooker, apples can fill out your favorite menu and your favorite memories.
From straight to the table or a detour into the dehydrator or slow cooker, apples can fill out your favorite menu and your favorite memories.
Photo coutesy of Sidonie Maroon
Posted

I love harvest time, the smells of apple butter that’s reduced all night in the slow cooker, lifting jars of applesauce out of the steaming canner, and more gleaned apples sit awaiting their turn in the dehydrator. 

While sterilizing jars and lids, my mind wanders... When did I first make apple butter? It was in Olympia when I was 20? I learned everything from “The Joy of Cooking” (circa 1964), a wedding present to my mother and the cookbook I left home with.  

In my 30s, I made apple butter off the grid, in my 1920s propane oven, pulling out a blue enamel roasting pan and stirring every half hour. I remember adding white wine and lemon zest to those batches. 

For the past decade, I’ve used a slow cooker to make fruit butters of all kinds. For apple butter, I fill it with cored apples and cook to a sauce on high for 4 hours. Then, they’re pureed and simmered on low overnight with the lid ajar so the juices evaporate. I use only apples, without adding sugar or spices until the end. Just apples cooked down to the essence of everything they were: flower, bee, fruit and ripening summer afternoons.

The tart cooking apples I’m using today came from the homestead of an elderly couple who can’t care for their trees anymore, but spent years pruning and making a productive orchard. They always encourage us to glean, and I’ll give them jars of apple butter, because it’s right to eat your own apples all winter. I ended up adding sugar and cinnamon to this batch with a touch of vanilla. I keep going back for taste tests. Yum! 

I’m making homemade vinegar with my leftover apple cores. Yesterday,
I poured the juice off the spent cores. I had a little glass, and it tasted dry, like the beginnings of hard cider. Then, I added unpasteurized apple cider vinegar with “the veil of the mother” to activate the vinegar-making process. 

Recently, I asked my Facebook group “Cooking with the Co-op” what apples meant to them, and teared up reading their stories. There were childhood memories of apple tastings, favorite climbing trees, family orchards, and cider-making. A recent widow recounted how her husband loved apple pie. Everyone had an apple story. When I work with young children, one of my favorite activities is to show them how an apple forms a star when it’s cut open — such simple magic, but impressive. 

Eating apples

My favorite eating apples are Braeburn, Spartan and Pink Lady. I wake up early, slice an apple and eat it with a chunk of sharp cheddar and a pot of black tea with milk.

Baking Apples

I’m partial to good baking apples. A baking apple must be on the tart side, but with a hint of sweet. 

My ultimate pie or crisp would include three varieties. I’ve had success combining Bramley, Cameo and Jonagold. I mix them in a jumble or, like in my tart recipe, create layers of flavor by making the bottom compote with two varieties and the top with another. 

Apple rosette tart with crumble crust

Makes one 9-inch tart with enough
for some extra smaller tarts

Simple, elegant apple tart with
a rosette of apple slices

APPLE INGREDIENTS

10 medium apples (best with tart local apples of several varieties)

Use 6 to make apple compote 

Use 4 for apple slices on top of tart

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ cup sugar

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

INSTRUCTIONS FOR APPLE COMPOTE

Preheat oven to 425F 

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Dice the apples. Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over the apples and dot with butter.

Roast for 20 minutes. Stir the apples and roast for another 15 minutes. Cool and puree until smooth.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR APPLE TOP 

Quarter, core and slice apples ⅛-inch thick

If they break too easily when you’re forming the tart blanch them for 1 minute.

CRUMBLE CRUST INGREDIENTS

2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal

1 cup flour of your choice

1 cup walnuts

1 cup pitted dates

1 cup unsalted cold butter cut into small cubes

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ teaspoon quatre epice (recipe below) 

½ cup whole cane sugar  

INSTRUCTIONS FOR CRUMBLE DOUGH

Using a food processor, combine all crumble ingredients and pulse until they come together like a cookie dough. 

CONSTRUCTING AND BAKING THE TART

Press crumble dough ½-inch thick firmly into the bottom of a round 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom and chill while preparing apples.

Preheat oven to 375F.

Layer pureed cold apple compote over the crumble crust about ½-inch thick.

Starting on the outside of the tart overlap by ½ the apple slices with the peel side up and bottom stuck into the sauce as an anchor. Keep going around forming a rosette until you reach the middle of the tart. Use your thumb to hold the slice before in place as you add the next one. In the center, fold two slices ends towards each other to fill in. Brush the apples with melted butter.

Bake for 30 minutes or until apples are done.  

QUATRE ÉPICE

Grind together in a spice grinder or coffee mill. Keep in a small jar and use for sweet and savory dishes. 

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1 nutmeg, broken up 

1 tablespoon dried ginger root (not powder)

1 teaspoon allspice berries

(Sidonie Maroon, abluedotkitchen.com, is culinary educator for The Food Co-op.)