Cookaholics Bulletin Board

I do not make apple butter, but I think that the habits of cider makers and growers of Bordeaux wine make sense with apple pies and other cooked apple products. Mixing varieties improves the flavor.

I use at least three or four different apple varieties in most of my pies. Because of geography [Upstate NY] and timing, I have what I think are excellent baking apples that happened to be available for picking last weekend and would probably make great apple butter. There are not many other parts of country where my apple selection makes much sense.

If I lived in New England, I might be all over Baldwins, Gravensteins, and Twenty ounce. Virginia has Stayman, Golden Delicious, and Rome. Washington State has Cripps Pink, Granny Smith, and Braeburn.

Thanks - I never heard of 20 ounce (I live just outside of Boston). I'll look for it.

I could not resist buying a single SweeTango apple at Wegmans today. At $2.69 per pound, my single apple cost $1.61. It tastes good, but it did not really set itself apart from the Empires or Galas we frequently buy for eating out of hand.

It did, however, make an awesome base for spreading black olive tapenade.

Sam's club has them for less than two bucks a pound here. They are good.

Last Saturday, my friend Mark and I went for a nice long motorcycle ride. We took in all the Fall colors and our destination was the Cherry Street Market in Kalkaska. My goal was to buy some Honeycrisp, because they usually have some nice ones there and the price is reasonable when you buy a basket vs. by the pound. The place was packed as usual for this time of year. Check out their website. I love this market and I wish it wasn't so far away, but it does make a nice ride in the Fall.


Cherry

I have a large grocery bag of Cortlands that apparently no one likes even though they ate them while picking. So I need to do something with them, am thinking apple sauce or apple butter. Will google but if anyone has done this with cortlands would love input as to finished product.

I don't make apple sauce, but I do use a lot of Cortlands in baking and they are recommended for apple sauce. Since I seldom let any variety of apple solo, I would probably mix in a few Macintosh.

Well, the Arkansas Blacks are now in, so I'm happy. I do like HoneyCrisp and Aurora, but it's really the Blacks that I look forward to every year.

Never had Arkansas Blacks, but I did luck into a bag of Haralsons for free. I made apple butter but left the skins on, just chunked up the apples and cooked them down, skins and all, until mushy then ran them through the food mill to get rid of skins/seeds. It is a-mah-zing how much pectin is in the peels - I couldn't reduce the applesauce down to dark brown apple butter because it was too darn thick. It's delicious, too. And now I have 5 1/2 pints to last me through the winter. Oh happy day.

Finally found some Sweetangos at Whole Foods, but have to say am disappointed. Maybe they don't travel well, but they were a little mealy and blah in flavor. Sticking with the regionals is best.