BWW Cooks: Apple Ideas That Are Easier Than Pie

It is, as we've been noting, apple season. If you have a good supermarket or farm market near you, you may have dozens of kinds of apples available right now. (There are over seven thousand varieties of apples around - although that's a decline from the late 1800's, when over EIGHT thousand varieties appear to have existed.) Applesauce is an easy treat to make, but perhaps you want to look industrious, and... just perhaps... you're one of the many people who don't want to make, or aren't a success, at the all-American apple pie. This author, who loves to cook, admits to pie fail, coming from a family of determined cake bakers. She admits she's gotten Pennsylvania Dutch farm wives, a canny bunch of bakers, to admire pies she's made with frozen organic pie crusts, but still, the phrase "easy as pie" sounds like work to her. Isn't there something easier than pie to do with apples?

Well, fortunately, yes, there is. Or, better, are.

The baked apple, in all its delicious glory, has beckoned humans for centuries. And there really is nothing easier. Choose a firm baking apple - Delicious disintegrate too easily, so look elsewhere, particularly if you can find Rome Beauty apples - and peel it, or better yet, don't, and core it (leave some bottom of the apple to contain the filling). Then stuff it with one of many different delicious fillings. The traditional dessert filling is butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nuts, with or without a few oats. That goes into a shallow baking pan covered very loosely with foil, and then into 350 degree oven for 35-40 minutes. It's usual, especially if the apples are peeled, to brush them with a little melted butter before baking. Some bakers put a little water into the baking dish, around ½ inch after the apples are in the baking dish. The result is oozing, gooey deliciousness that can be served with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or farm style with milk, light cream, or half and half poured around it.

But there are far more ways to do baked apples than just the classic. Some are even dinner entrée options. Try wowing your family and friends with any of them.

For breakfast and dinner, enlarge the core area a little and grate the extra apple you removed. As a great brunch dish, mix the apple with maple-flavored sausage and stuff the center loosely. Bake as above. For dinner, sweet Italian sausage with fennel is great - and so is a meat loaf filling. Use at least part ground pork in it and mix well with the shredded apple before stuffing the core. If you want to go to the effort, you could cut off the top of the apple, hollow it out, and stuff the shell with the meatloaf/apple filling, much in the way of stuffing a pepper or a squash.

Another breakfast or brunch option: a mixture of granola and softened butter, perhaps with a bit of cinnamon added to the mix. You can also mix raisins and nuts, or other chopped dried fruit and nuts, as filling for a breakfast apple - be sure there's plenty of butter mixed in to moisten dried fruit as the apple won't do it all.

For those who like the sophistication of apples and cheese, or who enjoy apple pie and a wedge of cheddar, consider a cheese stuffing. Shredded cheddar or crumbled blue both work well; also think about packing in some ripe Brie. You can toss in a few herbs, mix in a spoon of honey, add a few Panko crumbs, or top with Panko crumbs mixed with melted butter. Or mix in a spoon of your favorite jam for topping cheeses. You have a wide variety of options with this, for a snack, for a lunch, or for dessert.

But you want to look like you worked hard? Ah. Puff pastry dough is your friend for making turnovers. Make some Granny Smith apples into pie filling, or cheat and use a good canned apple pie filling. Take thawed puff pastry and open it out. Trim to a large square and quarter that into smaller squares. Spoon your filling on the center of each square - be careful not to overfill - and fold over diagonally. Moisten the sides to seal them, and press down. Bake them at 400 degrees for 25 minutes, and glaze or not as you see fit when they're cooled.

Or impress your dessert or snack crowd with apple dumplings. They look like work, but they're also easier than pie. You need a tube of 8 refrigerator biscuits, and 4 apples that you'll peel, halve, and core. Flatten the biscuit dough into circles, and wrap one flattened biscuit around each half-apple. Place them in a baking dish seam-side down. Mix a cup of sugar and a cup of water with one stick of butter (please use butter, not margarine) in a saucepan. Add a tablespoon of vanilla. Heat gently until sugar is dissolved and butter is melted; stir to combine before pouring over the dumplings. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes, and serve sprinkled with cinnamon. Vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, milk or cream, or an English custard sauce go well on or with these. Be sure to serve them hot.

But perhaps you need to produce something amazing. You need to look like you went all-out. Make an apple cake that looks great, tastes better, and takes no work. Start with a regular box of yellow cake mix. Prepare it for the tube pan version. Mix in a tablespoon of cinnamon in the process. Then fold in 2 baking apples, peeled, cored, and diced small. Pour into a prepared tube pan. Bake in a preheated oven (check the mix for baking temperature) and bake for 40 minutes or until done, and then cool. You can frost this or glaze this as you wish, or just dust with confectioner's sugar.

The reason apple pie is a classic dessert is not just that apples are delicious, but that apple pie is a simple dessert. It is the same reason that applesauce is a classic dish. What all of these dishes have in common is relative simplicity. Don't overcomplicate apple dishes. Don't overseason them, or bring in too many other flavors. Apple should be the starring flavor of apple dishes, as well as clearly present in the dish in texture and appearance.

As we've previously noted, pick the right kind of apple for the dish you are making. Baking apples should be firm, flavorful, and somewhat tart. An apple intended to be cooked down should be softer. Most cookbooks will recommend the type of apples they consider best for particular recipes. The very best beginning move you can make is to practice not buying either Red or Golden Delicious apples, which are photogenic but lack flavor compared to most other apples, and which break down too quickly under heat to be suitable cooking apples. Make friends with Granny Smith, McIntosh, Jonathan and Winesap apples.

And remember, your standard for apple dishes doesn't have to be "easy as pie" when it can be "easier than pie."

Photo Credit: Freeimages.com

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