Today we kick off a week of autumn fruit! The Kitchn will be setting out a fruit bowl of pears, plums, quince, figs, grapes, and persimmons for you this week. But the sweet bounty of autumn harvest must start with the most elemental fruit of all: Apples. We have 15 of our favorite apple recipes for you here, from a sweet and tender apple-yogurt cake, to a whole grain apple breakfast strata. Read on for apple recipes for every meal, including tea-time.
The humble apple is easily brushed aside for more glamorous fruits like peaches and figs, and it has suffered at the hands of grocery stores who let their customers believe that mealy Red Delicious apples are the pinnacle of what this fruit offers. Not so, we say! The sweet, modest apple is the quiet star of fall fruit — American as apple pie, carried from hill to orchard by Johnny Appleseed; and mushed into applesauce, pressed into cider, baked into double-crust pie.
Don't let its ubiquity keep you from enjoying it this fall; embrace its presence as a sign of the harvest, and pull the cinnamon from the cupboards. You can easily eat apples at every meal of the day — here's how:
APPLE CAKES (FOR AFTER SUPPER)
• 1 Apple Yogurt Cake with a Cinnamon-Sugar Streak - A quick, one-bowl recipe. Simple enough for breakfast, yummy enough for dessert.
• 2 Sticky Spiked Double-Apple Cake with a Brown Sugar-Brandy Sauce - A wicked awesome recipe. You have to make it at least once!
• 3 Apple Cardamom Upside-Down Cake - Cardamom scents this rustic and delicious apple cake.
• 4 Apple Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Meringue - A review of a Food52 recipe, a cake with a heady topping of meringue.
APPLES FOR BREAKFAST
• 5 Apple & Cinnamon Whole Grain Breakfast Strata - A lightened-up breakfast casserole.
• 6 Hearty & Healthy Apple Muffins - Seriously hearty muffins, with no eggs or dairy.
• 7 Shelby's Shredded Apple Muesli - A no-cook quick breakfast.
• 8 Apple Bettelman (Alsatian bread pudding) - A lovely bite for breakfast from Clotilde, one of our favorite bloggers.
APPLE TREATS & SNACKS (FOR THE LUNCH BOX)
• 9 Apple Gouda Oatmeal Cookies - Apples baked with gouda cheese into a lacy jumble of oatmeal cookie.
• 10 Oatmeal-Brown Sugar Baked Apples - Apples stuffed with oats and brown sugar.
• 11 Crispy Turnovers with Apple, Bacon, and Caramelized Onions - A sweet-savory turnover, good for breakfast or for lunch.
• 12 Rosemary Apple Turnovers with Honey - One more simple turnover, so sweet and easy.
APPLE PIES (FOR TEA TIME)
• 13 Free-Form Apple Tart - A simple, elegant apple tart.
• 14 Apple-Blackberry Pie with Ginger - My personal favorite incarnation of apple pie.
• 15 Candy Apple Pie - Winner of our 2008 pie bake-off.
What's your favorite apple treat — for breakfast, lunch, tea-time or after supper?
(Images: See linked recipes for full image credits)
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Personally, I like apples "as is". However, my husband and sons LOVE apple pie, so every year after we go apple picking, I bake them a pie. The original recipe came from one of my husband's former bosses who (in his opinion) made the best apple pies ever. I must admit that it really is a great pie: http://www.foodiecitymom.com/“best-apple-pie-ever”-recipe/
Your timing is impeccable, Faith! This weekend, we picked up 80 pounds of organic apples, the yield of a tree we rented from Earth First Farms in southwest Michigan. I'm sure we'll be raiding your list a lot to help us get through our bounty. For a couple more savory ideas for cooking with apples, you might try my grilled cheese sandwiches with apple and arugula or my braised pork roast with apple/onion compote.
Being from England, I am used to a proper cooking Apple, "A Bramley". I did see them once in California but never here in Las Vegas.
Any clues to where I might get a Bramley cooking apple. Of course they may be too sour for the American sweet tooth.
A bit disappointing to see that these recipes are all sweet, and packed with gluten and not a whole lot of apple. Regular cakes adapted to be gluten-free never taste all that good. Would love to see some recipes that are at least easily adaptable for those of us who can't eat all the flour and oats.
I recently made wonderful individual Apple Upside Down Cakes Drizzled with Salted Butter Caramel Sauce: just enough for 4!
http://lifesafeast.blogspot.com/2011/10/individual-apple-upside-down-cakes-with.html
I just use apples to make applesauce and its pretty sweet without anything but some cinnamon and a dash of sugar. here's my recipe, you can even make it in the microwave http://thefirstapartment.blogspot.com/2011/09/homemade-applesauce.html
I agree with happysparkle. With a title like, "An apple for every meal," I fully expected at least half of the recipes to be savory. There are so many good choices out there for bean stews with apples and whatnot, it's a shame this concentrates so heavily on the sweets.
@happysparkle look for a great GF apple treat this Friday!
And we did say that these are TREATS in the title. :) There will be more savory fruit coverage this week, don't worry.
Just posted a great fall treat: Apple, carmelized onions and camembert turnovers. So delicious!
http://rootpursuits.com/2011/10/12/apple-caramelized-onion-and-camembert-turnovers/
Don't forget this one: http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/09/moms-apple-cake/
I've played around with the recipe several times- taking out the oil, adding more apples etc and every time it is a hit. People always rave about this one! It's always my first fall baking project.
My boyfriend loves Spicy Baked Salmon with Apples! Just put a few 4 oz. salmon fillets on their own 12" square pieces of foil, sprinkle with cumin and cinnamon, cover with thin slices of Granny Smith apples, salt and pepper to taste, seal up foil packets with some air space inside and bake at 400F for about 15 minutes.
I can't wait to try those apple Gouda oatmeal cookies!