Can we talk a little bit more about Vermont? Last weekend I found myself struggling with a few difficult decisions: Farmers Market, Organic Garden, or Apple Picking. You can see which one I chose…
I’ve never eaten so many apples (and apple related things) in one day. It actually was a great learning experience! Apple tasting, you might say. I needed to know which were the best pie apples, eating apples, baking apples, etc..
Luckily, we had our local apple expert with us, Charlie Hofmann, pictured with the precious remaining ginger golds.
For those who survive on Macintosh and Granny Smith apples, you’ve got something to learn. Ginger golds are possibly one of the best tasting apples ever. It’s texture is amazing – the skin isn’t too hard or too grainy and the flesh is juicy and sweet. Unfortunately for us, it was the tail end of Ginger Gold season. We picked the remaining gems from the trees and then searched amongst the fallen for still-good apples.
We snagged a few Golden Delicious as well.
As James OB put it, (paraphrasing) Golden Delicious apples really know where it’s at. What other apple can live up to that name? The golden delicious were my favorite after the ginger golds. Also, I found out, they make good baking apples.
Most of our haul was made up of Empires.
There was no shortage of Macs, certainly.
However, our apple elitist attitude kept us from picking the most abundant apple. Actually, macs have a tendency to be mediocre. I spoke with the old ladies at the fruit stand though about pies (because old ladies at apple orchards make the best pie consultants) and was informed that the macs get nice and mushy inside pies, and that’s what “most people ’round here use”.
So we sent Sarah up into the tree to get the best ones she could find.
The old ladies also said that if I wanted an apple that will hold its slices in pie, I should get some of the cortlands. I took their advice, but no picture. I prefer pie with apple slices in it. I really don’t like fruit pies with a lot of goo. This is why, when it came to making pies, I used primarily cortlands and no recipe with the word “cornstarch”. As a side note, I usually don’t like cherry pie because of this. Although I do love cherries.
Apple picking isn’t complete without at least 2 cider donuts each and sharing a quart of freshly pressed cider amongst the pumpkins.
Summary:
Pie apples: cortlands (for slices), macs (for mush)
Baking apples: cortlands, golden delicious
Snacking apples: ginger golds, empires, golden delicious
Oh…. that is so not fair. was just thinking yesterday how much I want to go applepicking too… I need to get out of the south right now X3
All looks delicious!
Hi Ruthie! I saw your comment on Jen Yu’s blog. You might enjoy my latest entry over on mine.
Feel free to use my recipe if you’d like – I just gave it to a coworker and she said it worked PERFECTLY!
Good luck with your Thanksgiving challenge! Creme brulee is actually super easy!!
[...] Luckily, most “Vermont Apple Pie” recipes are in agreement. The first requirement are apples fresh from a Vermont orchard. The apples are then peeled and thinly sliced then tossed with a number of yummy ingredients – [...]