from Kris B.

Homemade Applesauce

I am being a rebel today and breaking from our traditional King Arthur Flour recipes.  Sometimes it’s what a girl has to do!  When I started thinking about our fifth Monday and a special fall treat, two things came to mind – my mom’s pumpkin bread recipe and homemade applesauce the way my grandmother made it.  I opted for the applesauce since the world seems to be overly saturated with pumpkin stuff these days.

A month or so ago, a friend and I were talking about homemade applesauce.  We got to comparing recipes.  Not surprisingly, our “secret” family recipes were virtually identical.  There are really no secrets involved.  That is kind of the way it is when things are homemade from wholesome ingredients.  As a kid, however, I thought my grandmother was the only one who could make applesauce that tasted so good.  She would make a huge batch in the fall during apple season and then freeze it to have throughout the year.  I always looked forward to pulling my frozen portion from her freezer on our summer trips to visit.

As an adult, my grandmother’s homemade applesauce is one of the first recipes that I wanted my mom to share with me.  As it turns out, there really is no recipe.  Like so many old family favorites, the recipe consists of a list of ingredients that are combined until it looks, feels, and tastes “right.”

The essential element for making homemade applesauce is not any of the actual ingredients.  It is a food mill.  This is how you achieve the perfect applesauce texture! There are lots of choices out there.  My food mill is very simple like the one here.

The other thing that is important, is the type of apples that you use.  Not all apples are created equally when it comes to making applesauce.  My favorite apple to eat plain is the Honeycrisp.  I have one almost every day in my lunch.  This variety, however, is not good for making applesauce.  The crispy apples take longer to break down into sauce.

My grandmother used a variety of apples in her applesauce, but she always included a Granny Smith or two.  This surprised me….as did the fact that she put quite a bit of sugar into her applesauce.  This is where our recipes differ.  Though I love the smoothness that the “melted” sugar gives to the applesauce, I prefer to make a no-sugar added version.  This means that my apple choice is even more important.

I use an equal  mix of Gala, Fuji, and Braeburn apples in my applesauce.  For me, this combination provides enough sweetness.

To cook the apples, fill a stock pot with water.  Wash the apples; there is no need to peel or core them.  Toss them whole into the pot of water.  They should be floating.  Cook them over medium heat until the skins “crack” and the apples are soft – not mushy, just soft.  They are then ready to run through the food mill.

With your food mill over a big bowl, Run all of the apples through.

I then add lemon juice, cinnamon, and cloves.  How much of all of these ingredients?  Enough to make the applesauce look, feel, and taste right. 🙂

Roughly, here are my proportions:

• Approximately 5 pounds of apples
• 3-4 TBS lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp ground cloves

That’s all I use.  I do double this recipe most of the time.

Some people add nutmeg as well.  If you have a sweet tooth and must add sugar, I suggest starting with small amounts of brown sugar, a tablespoon at a time.  Though your apples are sweet enough, this should be necessary.

I freezer the applesauce in quart-sized freezer containers.

The only thing that I wish I could do differently when making my applesauce is pick the apples myself.  Since that isn’t an option here in Texas, I have to be satisfied with the best grocery store options that I can find.

Give homemade applesauce a try.  You’ll never go back to the commercial stuff in a jar!

from Tracey G.

Apple Cider Doughnuts with Maple Glaze

When we discussed an extra Monday that needed a recipe, (as we had planned only for 4 before we moved our Monday schedule), Kris suggested a “Halloween Treat” – and I’m always good with and up for that!

So, when I started thinking about what to make, the first thing that came to mind for me was apple cider doughnuts. When Harry liked to Trick-or-Treat (now he would rather just go to the store and buy his favorites, geesh, my little fun-stopper…) we’d go to a local hotel that hosts an inside Trick-or-Treat. The local businesses and churches rent rooms, decorate them up and hand out candy to the kids that go door-to-door doing their Trick-or-Treating! It’s pretty cool because it’s inside, so no coat needed, and if it’s raining, no getting wet (and no costumes shrinking!). And, at the end of the “route” – they have you start in a specific place and you work your way around and end up in their continental breakfast area – they used to offer complimentary apple cider doughnuts (or cider and doughnuts, so I just combined the two, lol) and beverages.

I found a couple of recipes on the KAF website that feature apple cider, but this one sounded really good to me because it uses applesauce in it as well as the Boiled Cider they carry. You can also use extra applesauce in the Boiled Cider’s place, but if you can get the Boiled Cider – do it! It’s really yummy and it keeps well in the refrigerator! I use it a lot, and it all my recipes that I can that involve apples.  And, I used it to make my glaze for the doughnuts in this case as well, which was another recipe from KAF.

The doughnuts can be made with whole wheat flour, or all-purpose flour, which is what I did as I’m currently out of my White Whole Wheat Flour.

The ingredients for the doughnuts aren’t anything crazy, I had everything on hand:

• vegetable oil
• eggs
• granulated sugar
• applesauce, unsweetened preferred
• boiled cider; or 6 tablespoons additional applesauce
• vanilla extract
• ground cinnamon
• salt
• baking powder
• King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour or King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

The mixing is really easy, you combine everything but the flour and mix well. Then you add in the flour just until combined. This recipe, like my doughnut mix last week does require a doughnut pan if you want doughnuts, as they are baked – but they also give directions to make them into muffins if you want! It’s a win-win, lol.

You bake them for about 15 min, let cool in pan for 5, then turn out onto a rack to finish cooling. Now you can think about if you want to glaze them or not. You can shake them in cinnamon-sugar, or the Maple Glaze that they instruct. I chose to go with their Boiled Cider Glaze, which I’ve made before for a cake or two and I absolutely love. So, glazing or not is up to you and let me say that they are really good plain too!

I can once again, honestly say I’ll be making these again, they were really yummy and super simple to throw together, which is always something that makes me happy!