Play Book Tag discussion

I just need to share this with you guys because I know many of you are into gardening and recipes. We have an apple tree that gives us nothing some years, and a good supply other years. This year is the BEST year in the entire 35 years we owned the house. I don't know why this year is so good, I'm just enjoying it.

I saw an Applelovers Cookbook on the NPR concierge site and picked it up. My husband has been baking like crazy with recipes from books and online. I made a pork tenderloin with apples and onions when we had family in town, but my husband is the baker. I'm having a hard time health-wise, and he has been incredible taking care of me. He's made many different variations of apple pie, apple crisp, apple betty, buckle, cakes, coffee cakes, apple upside down cake, and a lot of things that could only be eaten with oatmeal or ice cream. I'm taking prednisone which often leads to weight gain, but I won't know if it's the medication or all the goodies. He keeps reducing the sugar, and it still tastes great.

We don't treat the apples at all, and they aren't all pretty, but they taste great. Sweet and tart, similar to MacIntosh I think. We haven't found any bugs at all, but I hesitate to eat them raw without careful inspection, washing and cutting. I hesitate to give them away raw, but we've been giving away a lot of baked goods to our neighbors.

Interesting, because in our area many orchards were practically wiped out this year by late frost.

Sounds delicious!! You have a great husband!

Mmmm sounds delicious. My grandparents had an apple orchard (as a livelihood). Many fond memories :)

Depending on the sort, the apples will keep a long time, if you place them in a cool dark place (like a garage). My grandparents used to have boxes of apples all winter.

Love apples - and my mouth is watering just reading the list of what you're baking!

Any special recipes to share? My current favorite variety is Honey Crisp. We are fortunate to have a nearby working, non-profit, historic orchard. On weekends they have pick-your-own, live music with dancing and of course apple pie!

Nancy - what a feast! How blessed to have all those apple delights to look forward to and distract you while dealing with health and medication issues, too.

Growing up on the farm upstate, we had apple trees (and bartlett pear trees - this is the time for those too), the main apple provider being an American Spy tree. That is still my favorite apple ever, putting all those new hybrids to shame. It's a bit tart and very firm so a perfect baking apple and a good eating apple. Lots of baked apples, applesauce, and apple crisp, but what we really went to town over was apple pie. In our house, all pie is good but apple pie is best and it was everyone's favorite dessert, especially my dad's. Mom would freeze apple pies ready to bake all winter. Like Johanne's grandparents, we stored apples in crates in the basement well into the winter.

Some apple pie family lore: When my parents were courting, Mom visited the farm and cooked my dad and his brothers (who at that time co-owned and worked the farm with him) a Sunday dinner. This was the early 40s after all. Mom knew dad's favoirte dessert was apple pie, so she made him one and when she went to serve him the first piece, it landed on the floor! She was so nervous that she just scraped it up onto the plate, served it to him and he ate it all without comment!

It did no harm, clearly as he lived until he was 96.

Great history!

Ooohh, those apples and baked goods sounds lovely. Hope you feel better soon :)

Good luck with the prednisone. I know a good book if you need it. I had to take it for one year. Yes, weight, changed diet, etc. peace, janz

Wishing you well Nancy and jealous of the husband that bakes!

Apple pie is my favorite. Warmed up with vanilla ice cream on top-YUM

So, my grandmother often made a well-known, in these parts of the world, apple cake called æblestang (means apple stick). It is sort of an apple pie, but with less dough than what I think of as American apple pie (though I don't know), and in a rectangular form, called æblestang (means apple stick). It is sometimes made with a yeast dough and sometimes puff pastry. My dad makes it sometimes, I'll have to ask him for the recipe.
My grandmother made so many delicious cakes and desserts. Apart from the apple orchard they also had pear trees, plums, lots of berries that she used to make all the goodies.

I also have 2 trees, untreated, that are fruitfully producing . One is green (I'm guessing gravensteins or similar?), and the other is a sweet red (honeycrisp or similar?).

I plan to make some applesauce, but otherwise I have NO IDEA what I'm going to do with all these apples!!

Isn't that interesting that we're all discussing apples here. Tis the season, to be sure! I must be on the same wave-length, because yesterday my husband and I went to a local apple orchard and enjoyed walking among the trees and tasting some apples. What caught my eye were the beautiful monarch butterflies flying about - so many of them.

@Nancy, It sounds like you've had a tough time with your health. I hope you feel better.

Johanne wrote: "So, my grandmother often made a well-known, in these parts of the world, apple cake called æblestang (means apple stick). It is sort of an apple pie, but with less dough than what I think of as Ame..."

This is fascinating! Thank you for the attempt to procure the recipe. What is your "part of the world"?

Holly: Monarch - apple combo, sounds beautiful! Hope you have a way to capture; photo, Plein air, etc

Sarah wrote: "Johanne wrote: "So, my grandmother often made a well-known, in these parts of the world, apple cake called æblestang (means apple stick). It is sort of an apple pie, but with less dough than what I..."

Oh sorry, Denmark. I think Germany, and probably the other Scandinavian countries will have something similar.

While trying to look up (or translate myself) an English version of the recipe for æblestang or æblekringle (stang means stick and kringle means ... I don't know, but they are very similar except for the kringle is "braided" and stang is just a rectangular "roll") I found an English recipe for æblekage (apple cake) which is a very common Danish dessert. My mum sometimes uses fresh grated apples instead of the common puré version. It makes for a lighter dessert and is very delicious (she puts a bit of lemon juice on the grated apples so they don't turn brown).

The recipe says margarine but use butter. Always use butter (sorry it's a thing for me ;) ) I'll leave it up to the US folk to look up a kilogram converter.
https://www.visitdenmark.com/denmark/...

It is usually served in a glass bowl, and it looks like this

Can I just say how irritating it is to search for traditional Danish cake recipes in English, and everything google gives you is ... Danish pastries?

ETA as an added fun fact, we in Denmark, call Danish pastries "wienerbrød" which means Vienna bread. At the time where the fancy Copenhagen pastry bakeries popped up, cakes from Vienna was IT, so they were named Vienna bread as a nod to Vienna bakeries.

YES! Always use butter-I channel my inner Paula Dean while cooking/baking...butter, butter, butter-the wonder of butter

Joanne wrote: "YES! Always use butter-I channel my inner Paula Dean while cooking/baking...butter, butter, butter-the wonder of butter"

We have SO much in common, Joanne :D
I channel a legendary Danish TV-chef who always says "butter, an abundance of butter" (or along those lines)

Johanne wrote: "Joanne wrote: "YES! Always use butter-I channel my inner Paula Dean while cooking/baking...butter, butter, butter-the wonder of butter"

We have SO much in common, Joanne :D
I channel a legendary D..."

Paula Dean, who has the best Southern accent, always says "Don't be afraid of butter"

Joanne wrote: "YES! Always use butter-I channel my inner Paula Dean while cooking/baking...butter, butter, butter-the wonder of butter"

For me it is channeling Julia Child....

However I have a few family cookie recipes that actually do not work with butter... only margerine. I think that is because they call for lard.... and no crisco does not work either.

Johanne wrote: "Can I just say how irritating it is to search for traditional Danish cake recipes in English, and everything google gives you is ... Danish pastries?

ETA as an added fun fact, we in Denmark, call ..."

Have you tried searching the websites and works of British pastry chefs to see if they have translated recipes of Danish delights? Or any European? I am thinking particularly of Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood oh and Great British Baking Show! They often do some European pastry I have never heard of - still want one day to have the kough-amann from Brittany region of France.

Lard makes the BEST pie crust!

Also the best fat for refried beans ... just sayin' ...

I'll give that a try Theresa ;)
I actually found some, but they weren't made like my grandma's.

I get a newsletter from this blog- and today they sen:t 22 insanely good apple desserts

https://www.justapinch.com/blog/artic...

Thanks for all the comments and sharing. I love it!

I'll ask him for the favorite recipes, but some he concocts by himself by combining ideas from several recipes. He made one apple cake three times, reducing the salt, sugar and lemon in each step, and added two layers of apple slices. It was so good. I hope he wrote it down or can remember.

He made an apple pull-apart bread (using slices of risen bread - it looked like a Jenga game in the pan), with diced apples in the dough and between the layers. It tasted like an unfried, healthy version of an apple fritter.

Note - Apple Upside Down Cake is delicious but it's not very attractive. He used a regular cake mix, and flipped it to allow some of the apple juices to sink into the cake. It made the cake too moist and it kind of got mushy and brown. But it was hands down my mother's favorite, heated or cold, with or without ice cream.

He uses primarily butter too, and often uses unsalted butter despite what the recipe calls for. He misread one recipe with two parts, and put too much butter in the mix for the top layer. So he improvised by adding more brown sugar and pecans to give it a thicker Crisp topping. OMG it was incredible. so delicious. But later... so much heartburn.

Between the medication, the buttery dessert and half a glass of wine, I developed the worst heartburn of my life. So I'm off desserts and a lot of things for a while. Prednisone is giving me nice periods of restless energy, so I actually really want to work out every day. With the music it feels like I'm dancing on my bike. I'm so envious of people who have this kind of energy every day of their lives naturally. I'm managing the side effects, and it's only for a few more weeks I think.

Found some more apple recipes :)

https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/articles...

The strudel is rather close to the one my grandmother made. But I wouldn't put strawberries.
The big difference is, she didn't make it with a pastry dough, but a yeast dough.

Johanne wrote: "While trying to look up (or translate myself) an English version of the recipe for æblestang or æblekringle (stang means stick and kringle means ... I don't know, but they are very similar except f..."

Kringle is well-known in Wisconsin, apparently the Germans made it and it is available at many bakeries and grocery stores, indeed a braided dough with fruit filling and icing.

I had no idea Robin! I acne now search for apple kringle and found this recipe: https://www.evermine.com/blog/apple-k...

*I can

Johanne wrote: "Mmmm sounds delicious. My grandparents had an apple orchard (as a livelihood). Many fond memories :)

Depending on the sort, the apples will keep a long time, if you place them in a cool dark place..."

Yes, but what not everyone might know is that you have to go through each one of them to be sure it's perfect and pack them carefully. :) The adage "one rotten apple can spoil the whole bunch" not not be true of people, but it is based on fact :)

Also, not all apples are good storage apples. MacIntosh apples don't store well, for example (for one thing, they are too soft, but there may be other reasons). Here is one website with a list of good storage apples:
https://www.thespruceeats.com/apple-v...
here is one how-to article
https://practicalselfreliance.com/app...

Enjoy those apples!

Here is a recipe for something one of my grandmother used to make with different kinds of fruit. Apple Platz
https://www.foodfaithfitness.com/appl...

There are so many apple varieties. I don't think the types my grandparents had are even in the US.

That recipe looks delicious Karin.
I have some plums that I'm thinking of turning into a crumble this weekend. All this cake talk really has me in a baking mood :)

Johanne wrote: "There are so many apple varieties. I don't think the types my grandparents had are even in the US."

Even the types I grew up with are nearly impossible to find .... the Northern Spy may even be considered an heirloom or artisenal apple at this point.

A good storage apple is harder, firmer than most beloved eating apples, which is why they can be stored. Hybrid development is intent on making good eating apples which means they are not good baking apples because too soft and juicy - turn to mush with lots of liquid. Soft juicy McIntosh are good eating apples, good for applesauce but terrfible in pies and baked goods where you want apples to hold shape.

Yes, there are an enormous number of types of apples.

For those who don't already know, you cannot plant a seed from your favourite variety of apples and expect to get a tree of that variety. When a great variety appears, orchardists graft branches onto rootstock. You can start rootstock from seed, but you take budding branches in the spring and graft them on. This goes for olives as well--to get edible ones you have to graft branches.

Most of the time if you plant appleseeds you usually don't get anything good, and in order to get apples trees have to be pollinated from different varieties.

I can't find a good photo of what I'd like to show you, but near harvest time in the Okanagan Valley, BC you can see apple orchards with rows of green apples broken up occasionally by single red apple trees. (For those who from the western part of the US Washington state has Okanogan County--different places :)