Our annual trek to Anderson’s Orchard occurred a week early this year, so I missed the Scarlet Beauty’s, but otherwise, we enjoyed the bumper crop.  I got my usual suspects: Ida Reds, Jonathan’s, Jonagold’s (to take the place of my missing Scarlets), and this year I tried Winesaps because they looked so amazing.  Kind of bland, but it’s always good to try something new.  There were also trees dripping with eating apples like Golden and Red Delicious, but I prefer the cooking apples.  If I’m going to eat an apple, I eat Granny Smiths or Honeycrisps, and let me tell you people, those Honeycrisp trees are BARE.  I’ve eaten them all.

The trees had to be thinned this year or they would have broken.  After struggling to grow one dinner’s worth of beans, this feat of agriculture amazes me.  The weather was beautiful, and not blazing hot for once.  But…there is something off about the apples this year.  I don’t know if it was the wet and chilly summer, but the apples don’t have the flavor of last year’s crop.  They are beautiful, but somehow, diluted in flavor.

Still, it’s always fun to pick a bushel and imagine all the wonderful things I’ll be making this fall.  I hauled the load home and divided up the varieties into my second fridge.  Late harvest apples (some call them “winter apples”) keep for quite some time, in case you thought I cooked a bushel of apples in a week or two.  Apple picking day has become a family tradition and no one misses our trip, not even my Mom with her broken ankles.  Luckily at Anderson’s, you can drive right up to the trees!

I’ve cooked my first apple cake of the season, which might be my favorite apple recipe.  I find it shocking that I like anything more than apple pie, but apple cake is GOOD.  The girls and I made our first applesauce, which I’ve never made because I don’t love applesauce.  And WOW.  WOWWWWW.  As always, food is always better fresh.  Friday night during Avery’s sleep over, we made and inhaled warm cinnamon applesauce like it was manna from heaven.  It’s so easy that it barely qualifies as cooking.  Why haven’t I tried this before?  My first attempt at apple donuts completely failed, so back to the drawing board on that one.  Frying isn’t as easy as it looks.

Apple Cake

• 6-9 apples (I use a mixture of Jonathan/Ida Red/Scarlet Beauty, but really…use what you like.  McIntosh might actually work best in this recipe)
• 1 Tablespoon of cinnamon
• 5 Tablespoons of sugar
• 1 cup finely chopped walnuts (optional)
• Peel, core and chunk apples.  Toss in the mixture above.  Preheat oven to 350 and grease and very lightly flour a tube pan.
• 2 and 3/4 cup flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 2.5 teaspoons vanilla
• 4 eggs

Stir together dry ingredients.  In a separate bowl, whisk together wet ingredients.  Mix wet into dry, then add eggs, one at a time.  Scrape down bowl to get a good mix.  Pour half the batter into the tube pan.  Spread half the apples over it.  Pour in remaining batter and arrange remaining apples on top.  Bake for about 1.5 hours.

Apple Sauce

Boil some chunked apples in water with some sugar and cinnamon.  Smash it up when tender.  Heck, I put it in the blender.

I know I’m struggling with my fall mood this year.  I even missed Riley Days and failed to shop for flannel pumpkins.  WHAT?  Because you know I love tiny pumpkins made of flannel.  Don’t ASK ME WHY…because I’m a Hoosier and we believe fake produce never goes out of style.  I just DON’T KNOW.  So my spirit is off, but I’m trying, I really am.  So let me say, as I say every Harvest Season: HAPPY FALL YOU’ALL!!!