Grandad's Apple Cake

My Irish grandfather really loved this apple cake. My Mom would make it anytime that he was coming to visit. Since it uses applesauce it can be made any time of year, but this special version uses freshly made applesauce using the Gravenstein apples growing in our orchard, plus peeled, diced fresh apples...something that isn't in the favorite recipe, but I think grandad would have loved this variation.

This cake is a somewhat rustic tea cake and is moist and flavorful from the apples. I used white whole wheat flour from King Arthur for some additional fiber and goodness. I used golden raisins and walnuts, too, plus cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. If you are yearning for just a bit of fall flavors as we begin to leave summer, this recipe is perfect for you!

If you are making this with homemade applesauce as I did, don't worry if yours is slightly thicker (as mine was) or thinner than the commercial kind...it will be fine after the cake bakes. I used half the sugar since I prefer my tea cake a bit less sweet and the applesauce adds natural sugars, but I'm leaving the recipe as written and you can adjust the amount of sugar to your own preferences.

I baked this up in four small loaves, plus one six-inch round pan. That way I can enjoy one small loaf with Sweetie, have another for the fire folks last night and still have some for the freezer, ready for tea time with friends after a brief thaw. The recipe has you bake it in a Bundt pan. I've done it that way and it works really well, too.

You can use any kind of apple for this but one with good apple flavor will be the best. I didn't peel the apples in the applesauce, but I did peel the fresh diced ones, but you can peel or not and it will still be a delicious cake.

Applesauce Cake

Makes 1 10" Bundt cake

3 cups flour

1 ½ teaspoon soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon cloves

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¾ cup shortening

2 cups sugar

3 eggs, beaten lightly

1 ½ cup applesauce

1 cup raisins

1 cup nuts - chopped (walnuts are good)

2 medium apples, peeled, cored, and diced into 1" pieces (optional)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Sift flour with soda, salt and spices. Set aside.

Cream shortening and add sugar gradually; cream until light. Add beaten eggs and beat to combine.

Add flour mixture alternately with the applesauce, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.

Fold in the raisins and nuts (and diced fresh apples if using). Turn batter into a greased and floured Bundt pan.

Bake in Bundt pan in preheated 350 degree F oven for one hour or until done. Toothpick inserted will come out clean or with only a few crumbs stuck to it.

Cool on a rack 10 minutes, then turn out on a wire rack to cool.

Welcome September

It's Gravenstein apple time here in Sebastopol. The trees seem to be loaded this year, which is surprising since we had rain when the blossoms were heaviest in the spring. No complaints about the quantity, although I doubt that I will be able to use them all this year.

Just had some homemade Gravenstein apple sauce that I made yesterday. It only takes a short while to peel four apples, cut out the core and stem, and cut into wedges. Into a heavy bottomed pot they go along with cinnamon, a bit of vanilla sugar, some allspice and some nutmeg. Since they are ripe, they didn't need any added sugar. I only used the vanilla sugar for the flavor. You could sub vanilla extract...but just use a few drops. I added some water and lime juice for liquids and cooked them over slow heat, covered.

Gravenstein apples break down really easily, so you barely have to mash the finished product, especially if you like lumpy applesauce as I do. I'll make some applesauce with more readily available apples like Granny Smith later. This recipe works best with the slow food darling, the real Gravenstein.

It's fall, y'all!

Gravenstein Apple Sauce
two servings

4 medium to large ripe Gravenstein apples, peeled, cored & stem removed, sliced into wedges
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon vanilla sugar
dash allspice
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon lime juice

Place the apple slices and the rest of the ingredients into a heavy bottom saucepan with a lid. Stir to coat the slices with the spices and liquids, then cover and cook over low heat for 45 minutes. Check every 15 minutes to make sure there is still some liquid and stir to keep apples from sticking.

When cooked and soft, mash with a potato masher or a fork until desired consistency. Cool to eating temperature. Refrigerate any leftovers.

Fall Skillet Apple Spiced Caramel Pie

My favorite season has come...Fall!...and I have finally been home long enough to bake with some Gravenstein apples from our trees. I saw this recipe online a while ago and saved it until I had time and reason to make an apple pie...and then I changed it significantly (so what else is new?).

Sweetie has been losing weight on purpose for the last couple of months and I've been cooperating by baking far, far less than usual. It's been good for us both (I'm lighter too...funny how it works that way) but I miss the creativity of baking. This one required a lot of creativity, plus knowledge of the ingredients, but the resulting pie was fabulous! If at all possible, use a cast iron skillet to make this. A pie pan will work, I suppose, but the cast iron gives you a lovely bottom crust.

Last night we celebrated the birthday of a good friend so I had an excellent excuse to bake and to bake this amazing apple pie. I highly recommend that you bake it. Sweetie is not a big fan of apple pie, but he really liked this one.

One of the major changes to the recipe came about because Gravenstein apples, the kind we grow, tend to bake up very soft and they throw off plenty of juice, too. I also added some pie spice because an apple pie without spice just seems wrong. It doesn't fight with the vanilla and bourbon, but enhances each.

If you are using Gravenstein apples, you need to do the microwave part because with heat they shrink and also give off a lot of juice. If you skip it you will likely get a top crust that is high over a void before you get to the apple filling and the bottom crust will likely be soft and swimming in juices as you cut the pieces.

If you are using apples like MacIntosh, Braeburn, Granny Smith, etc., that keep their shape and don't exude lots of juice, just skip the microwave part and only use 1/3 cup of the caramel sauce to mix in with the apples...keep the rest to serve with the pie. The sauce is lovely all by itself and would be great over ice cream or fruit and pound cake.

The resulting pie when made with Gravenstein apples is fairly dense, not high, just sweet enough and there is a lovely, flaky crust that is browned on the bottom because of the cast iron skillet. The aroma of apples and spice is intoxicating and the flavor of apple is enhanced by the caramel sauce. You will likely have trouble eating only one piece...but that leaves some for breakfast!

Skillet Caramel Spice Apple Pie
a variation of a recipe on myrecipes.com
Serves 8

1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup non-dairy margarine (or butter)
3 tablespoons non-dairy creamer (I use Original Silk Soy Creamer) or 1/2 & 1/2
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon Penzey's Pie Spice, or cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon bourbon (optional)
1 set of prepared pie crusts (I uses Pillsbury ReadyCrusts)
3 pounds apples, peeled and cut into 1/2" thick slices
4 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch, divided (only 2 1/2 needed if not doing microwave part)
1 lg egg yolk, lightly beaten (reserve egg white for sealing crusts)
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon sanding sugar (optional)

In a medium pot melt the margarine or butter. Stir in the brown sugar, , soy creamer or 1/2 & 1/2,  salt and pie spice or cinnamon. Over medium-high, cook the mixture, stirring until it bubbles. Continue cooking, stirring for 2 more minutes until mixture begins to thicken. Remove from the heat. Stir in the vanilla and, if using, the bourbon. Cool almost to room temperature, about 30 minutes, stirring at about 10 minutes to keep a skin from forming.

Fit one pie crust in the bottom and press up the sides of a 9" cast iron skillet. Put in the refrigerator to chill.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees, making sure that one rack is in the bottom position in the oven.

Toss apples with 2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch in a large bowl. Pour 1/3 cup cooled caramel sauce over the apples and toss to coat.

Microwave part: Put the apple slices that have been coated with cornstarch and 1/3 cup caramel sauce and microwave on full power for one minute, with bowl covered with a large piece of waxed paper or parchment paper. Stir then microwave again for one minute. Apples will have reduced in volume and there will be a lot of juice. Remove any cover and place bowl in refrigerator. Stir every 15 minutes and keep refrigerated until apples are cool to the touch. Remove from the fridge and use a ladle to remove 1/4 cup of the juices from the bowl. Add an additional 2 tablespoons cornstarch to the juices and stir or whisk until the cornstarch and juices are totally combined. Stir that mixture back into the apples. Stir in the rest of the caramel sauce and stir until apples are coated. Now you are ready to put the filling into the prepared pie-crusted skillet.

Note: If you are using apples that hold their shape and don't release a lot of juice when cooked, skip the microwave part. You will still toss prepared apples with the 2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch and the 1/3 cup caramel sauce until coated, but the remaining sauce will be available to drizzle over the finished, served, pie. The additional cornstarch won't be needed.

Remove prepared crust from the fridge. Pour apple filling into prepared crust. Place remaining pie crust over apple filling. Seal by lightly coating the exposed side dough in the skillet with egg white and pressing the top crust to it. Crimp crust edges together.

Use a sharp knife to cut 6 - 8 one inch slits in top crust to let steam escape. Whisk together egg yolk and water and brush over crust. If desired, scatter sanding sugar over.

Bake on bottom rack of preheated over for 55 minute - 1 hour. After about 30 minutes, shield crust with foil if needed to prevent excessive browning.

Bake until crust is golden, apples tender, and filling bubbly. Transfer to wire rack and cool completely 3 hours. Serve & enjoy.

Apple Pie-ish

The Gravensteins are here! A big banner, sponsored by the Slow Food movement, announces that fact right near Whole Foods in downtown Sebastopol. Gravensteins are one of the early apples. They are delicious and make great applesauce and cider, even pie, but don't keep and don't ship well. Fortunately, we have a couple of Gravenstein trees on the property and this morning I had my first taste of the season.

My breakfast was apple pie-ish because I diced half of an unpeeled Gravenstein, sprinkled it with cinnamon, microwaved it for a minute and a half, then used that delicious, hot apple goodness as the base for my cereal and plain yogurt. If you think about the bran cereal as having pie crust flavors, and the yogurt as having the dairy flavor that some ice cream or whipped cream would have, it isn't difficult to pretend that you are eating apple pie...well, if you have an imagination like mine anyway.

The main kitchen cabinets are here this morning, too! Soon we will be having breakfast in regular bowls, not paper ones, because we will have a dishwasher again. Once the stove is hooked up, there will be real cooking and baking again, too. Exciting!

A Bread Baking Babes Bread Revisited

Sometimes you get a chance to sort of go back and rewind. There are things that you would have done differently, or, in fact, done at all. Making Sukerbolle, a very sweet bread that was a Bread Baking Babes choice for September 2008, is a case in point. This was the eighth bread that the Babes had baked as a group. Since a number of the Babes had blogs which I read fairly regularly, I had seen the posts on this bread and it looked good. The truth is that this was also before I became totally immersed in sourdough starter making and then frequent bread baking, so I mostly admired the breads the Babes baked but didn't really think to become a Buddy.

Now Carola of Sweet and That's It has given us another opportunity to bake the bread as a group. I'm hoping that Monique, who originally was the Kitchen of the Month for this bread, approves of the choice and of my unorthodox approach to it. I know that Carola will find it interesting because she is a true breadhead...and that is one of the best compliment I can give.

The recipe calls for ginger syrup. You can use the syrup that candied ginger comes in or you can make your own. As it happens, I had some apple cider syrup in the fridge and there was just enough left for this bread. I also have loads of Gravenstein apples this year on the trees. I decided to tweak the recipe so that it is a Caramel Apple Bread version, using store bought caramels, cut into small pieces. There is still a lot of cinnamon and all the rest of the ingredients are pretty much the same, but I used the apple cider syrup instead of the ginger syrup and I added 1/2 cup grated, peeled tart apple, and traded the caramel pieces for the sugar nuggets. Going back to the original version, I decided to knead the apple and caramel into the dough instead of doing the jelly roll thing. I borrowed Carola's versions use of a mixture of melted butter and plain yogurt.

This is a delicious bread with a lovely crumb. It is pretty sweet, so I hope you enjoy sweet breads. When it is first baked and just barely warm, the caramel is still gooey, which I love. You can just taste the apple and there is lots of cinnamon flavor. It can be eaten just as it is, but do try one slice with just a bit of butter. Sublime. Great for breakfast with some fruit and coffee. A nice afternoon snack with a cup of tea, too.

Thank you Carola for creating the Back to the Future Buddies group and for choosing this great bread. Can't wait to see what other versions there will be.

If you would like to join the group and bake the bread, contact Carola for the deets.

Sending this to Susan at Wild Yeast for the Yeastspotting weekly event. Do go there and see the wonderful collections of a wide array of yeasted breads.

Sukerbolle

From Monique's blog:

500 grams all purpose flour
10 grams salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon-powder (a little more if you like it)
3 tablespoons of ginger-sirop (use the sirop that comes with those gingerballs you buy in a jar, see picture)
Make that gingersirop up to 2 dl with handwarm milk. (from your Frisian cow in your backyard, maybe ?)
25 grams fresh yeast
75 grams unsalted, melted butter (let it cool down before use)
2 eggs
150 grams sugar grains, see picture. Or use sugar lumps /cubes, and make small pieces of them.( by beating them with….whatever). Or…but I didn’t try : Spread the sugar and the cinnamon on your cutting board and sprinkle,drop by drop, with 2 tablespoons of water. Stir until it sticks in thicker lumps and let dry for a couple of hours.

Make a nice dough with all the ingredients , except the sugerlumps or sugergrains and the cinnamon, and let it rise for 45 minutes. After that, you can fold in the sugar, mixed with cinnamon, and work it through your dough.

Form a nice bread and put it in a small bread-tin. Make sure it is greased with lots of butter !!

On top, you can sprinkle granulated sugar, so it can form a caramel on your bread.

Cover and let it rise for 15 minutes .

Bake it in a warm oven in 30 minutes until brown and done.

Sorry, no temperatures…in those days living and cooking where very easy…
(For me, I use 200 C or 400 F).

From Carola's Blog:Ingredients for one loaf of about 1 kg (35 cm long)

For the dough:
25 g fresh yeast (1 package (7 g) instant active dry yeast)
3 tablespoons (45 ml) of ginger-syrup
155 ml of lukewarm milk (milk + gingersyrup = 200 ml) 
500 g all purpose flour (350 all purpose flour + 150 g whole wheat flour)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten at room temperature
75 g unsalted butter, melted and cooled down (40 g butter mixed with 40 g plain yogurt)
10 g salt (= 2 teaspoons) 

For the Filling:

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (1 1/2 teaspoons)
150 grams sugar grains 

For the top:
Milk for brushing the loaf (or eggwash) 
Granulated sugar (or sugar in grain)

Directions for the stand mixer (or you can knead it my hand, if you prefer):

Grease well a loaf tin with butter or line it with parchment paper.

In the bowl of your stand mixer dissolve the yeast with the milk and the ginger syrup and wait 5-10 minutes for the yeast to activate = it will foam.

Add the sifted flours and shortly knead with the dough hook . Then add the eggs, the butter-yoghurt mixture and the salt and knead for 8-10 minutes, until the dough is soft and no longer sticky.

Transfer the dough into a lightly oiled big bowl , cover with a plastic foil and let rise for 45-60 minutes, until it doubles in volume .

Pour the dough on a floured surface, fold it twice and cover it with plastic
foil.

Roll out the dough into a rectangle, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar grains and gently press down with your hands the sugar into the dough. 

Roll tightly beginning from the short edge of the rectangle (or follow the original recipe: “fold in the sugar mixed with cinnamon , and work it through your dough”). 

Carefully transfer it into the loaf tin, seam side down.

Brush the top with some milk (or egg wash) and sprinkle with granulated sugar or sugar grains.

Cover with plastic foil and let it rise for the second time for about 30-40 minutes (to check if it’s ready, make the finger test:  when the dough springs back leaving a light indention, the dough is ready to go in the oven).
In the meantime preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) with a ramequin full of water (it will create steam and help the dough rising).

Bake the bread for about 30 minutes, until brown. Should it get brown too quickly, cover the bread with parchment paper (I do not like aluminum foil).

The first 10 minutes I've baked it at 400°F (200°C), then 10 minutes at 356°F (180°C). As it started getting too brown, I covered it with parchment paper and baked it for another 10 minutes; then I took the paper away and baked it for the last 3-4 minutes (total baking time: 34 minutes). PS: I always do the thermometer test: when the internal temperature reaches 200°F (93°C) the bread is ready. 

Remove from the loaf tin and place on a wire rack to cool.

 

Elle's versions:

500 grams all purpose flour
10 grams salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons apple cider syrup (45 ml)

155 ml with handwarm milk.
1 package (7 g) instant active dry yeast
40 g melted and cooled butter mixed with 40 g plain yogurt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
150 grams caramels, cut into small pieces. I also dusted them very lightly with confectioners sugar to keep them from sticking together
1/2 cup grated tart peeled apple
cinnamon-sugar and a bit of milk for the top of the loaf

Make a nice dough with all the ingredients, except the caramel and the apple, and let it rise for 45 minutes. After that, you can fold in the caramel and apple, and work it through your dough.

Form a nice bread and put it in a small bread-tin. Make sure it is greased with lots of butter !!

On top, sprinkle cinnamon-sugar, so it can form a nice topping on your bread. Some of the caramel pieces may poke through the dough. That's OK. They might drip a little over the crust, but will look great.

Cover and let it rise for 15 minutes.

Bake it in a warm oven in 30 minutes until brown and done. You may want to put some foil on the rack under the oven rack the bread is baking on, just in case some of the filling drips.

Bake in a hot oven until baked through.
(For me, I used 200 C or 400 F for 10 minutes, at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes, then I covered it with foil and continued to bake it another 10 minutes at that temperature. Turned out just right.)

Cool on a wire rack 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides to loosen and turn the loaf out onto a rack to cool...if you can wait. It actually is wonderful just slightly warm, with the gooey caramel in little pockets here and there in each slice.

 

The Start of Apple Season

Although the true days of fall are still far off, in this area we start apple season in August with the Gravenstein apple. It is an old variety and doesn't store at all. A few days, maybe a week, then they begin to turn to mush.

The good news is that they are tart, delicious, and make wonderful baked apple dished since they get nice and almost gooey when they are cooked. Apple pies made with them are wonderful. Apple sauce is superb. For a very quick treat, an apple crisp made with Gravensteins can't be beat.

Although you certainly can make this dish with peeled apples, I left on the peel for ease of preparation (my focus was on the trim in the dining room that I was giving a fresh coat of paint, so time was at a premium), and because it keeps a lot of the nutrients in the dish. The maple syrup added sweetness in a mellow way, and the crisp benefited from the old fashioned rolled oats that I used. That kind seem to get crisper when baked than the quick cooking kind of oatmeal. Butter, raw brown sugar, flour and some cinnamon and allspice are the easy ingredients that combine with the oats for the topping. Try it topped with some vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt. It's a late summer delight. Glad that apple season has begun.

Gravenstein Apple Crisp

serves 4-6

4 cups sliced apple - Gravensteins preferred, but any tart cooking apple will work

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

1 teaspoon cinnamon, divided

1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) butter, cold

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup raw brown sugar, or light brown sugar

1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats

1/8 teaspoon allspice

In a shallow cast iron skilled or shallow baking pan, mix the apples, syrup and 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon. Spread the fruit out in the pan.

In a medium bowl, place the butter, cut into tablespoon sized pieces, the flour, brown sugar, and oats. Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon and the allspice over all. Using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut the butter into the remaining ingredients until well mixed. If you prefer, you can use you hands, although the results will be clumpier.

Distribute the crisp mixture over the fruit and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20-20 minutes or until the fruit is cooked and juices bubble and the topping is golden brown and crisp.

Serve warm or cold. This dish is great with the addition of a scoop of ice cream, or frozen yogurt.

Seasonal Salad

The green salad is a boon for keeping the calories at bay and adding some nutrition to the meal at the same time. I tend to use mesclun, a mix of small sweet and bitter lettuce. It's sold at our local store as 'Spring Mix', even when it ought to be 'Fall Mix' because you know those tiny leaves have not been growing since the spring.

One of my favorite ways to uses these cute greens is to mix in some sort of cheese, some sort of fruit and some sort of nut. Recently I made a salad that seemed perfect for the autumn. To the lettuce mix I added some slices of 'Red' Gravenstein apples from the tree down by the garden...they have a little more red on the skin and they ripen later than the greener Gravs...plus some tangy blue cheese crumbles and walnuts from the tree out back. I toasted the walnuts first to bring out their flavor. A handful of chicken chunks from an earlier meal (although you could buy a cooked chicken at the market and use some of that, too) added some more protein and flavor. I dressed the salad with a sprinkle of rice wine vinegar that was seasoned with a little balsamic vinegar. The salad was refreshing, savory, and seemed just right for Fall. (I know there is no chocolate in this post...a girl has to have low calorie meals sometimes... but there will be some soon :)

A Second Chance

Which of us doesn't need a second chance? The first time we messed up somehow...spaced out or were immature or too tired or a hundred other possible things got in the way. Mother nature, bless her, rarely gives us a second chance with the progression of the fruits that find their way through the seasons. With the right cultivar we might get a fall harvest of strawberries. With a green house we can turn the seasons on their head. But to have a whole extra crop without any effort on our part...that is a true bonus...a second chance to take advantage of, in this case, an extra crop of blackberries.

This had been a great year for blackberries. For weeks I harvested a handful each morning to sweeten up my breakfast oatmeal. I did make a few dishes with the berries, but I grew busy with the new job just when the berries were at their peak and most bountiful. So many were never harvested and just dried on the vines.

Then we had a weird combination of some cool followed by a long sustained heat spell. Well, the blackberries must have thought it was spring and summer all over again. A whole new crop came into being and now they are hanging ripe and sweet, juicy and very seductive in clusters, just waiting to be picked and appreciated.

The other day I spent long enough picking them to fill a pint basket. The Gravensteins are almost finished, but there were some nice apples just right for combining with the berries in a berry-apple cobbler. The topping is not difficult...just a combination of ground almonds, packaged biscuit mix and sugar, plus enough milk to make a cobbler dough that can spread over the fruit. Sweetie had two helpings and was duly appreciative that Mother Nature gave us a second chance for summer's berries in mid-September.

Andrea of Andrea's Recipes is hosting a second round of Grow Your Own. Even though I didn't have to do much of anything to grow these great berries and apples, I think this dish qualifies. Go on over later in the month to check out the yummy dishes in the event. You'll be glad you did.

Blackberry-Apple Cobbler

1 pint fresh blackberries, washed and drained

1 cup tart apple chunks, peeled or unpeeled

1 cup biscuit mix, such as Bisquik

1/2 cup almonds, ground until fine in a food processor with

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In wide baking dish place berries and scatter the apple chunks over them evenly. The apple chunks should be about the same size as the berries. Cover the dish with foil and press edges to seal. Place dish in preheated oven and bake for 15 minutes, or until the berries give up some of their juice and the juice bubbles.

While the fruit is cooking, mix the ground almond/sugar mixture with the biscuit mix in a mixing bowl. In another small bowl, mix together the milk and the brown sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar.

When the berry-apple mixture juice is bubbly, remove the foil. Stir the milk mixture into the biscuit mixture and stir just until combined. If the mixture seems too stiff, add a little more milk. Drop the biscuit mixture over the hot fruit, spreading a little if needed, to cover most of the dish. It's OK if some of the fruit is not covered. The biscuit mixture will spread a little more as it cooks.

Bake for 15 minutes or until the biscuit topping is golden brown.

Serve while hot or warm, with some light cream or ice cream over the cobbler if desired. Serves 4-6.

A Local Sweet Specialty

Gravenstein apples were once the mainstay of agriculture in Sonoma County, along with hops, chickens and eggs. They are suited to this area because they are drought tolerant and we get very little summer rain. They are a beautiful apple with a green skin streaked with red striation. The flesh is white and the apples don’t keep and bruise easily, so they don’t ship or store well like Red Delicious and Pippin, for example.

One of the things that Gravenstein apples are superior for is applesauce. They cook down easily and retain a nice tartness and strong apple flavor. You can purchase Gravenstein applesauce at some Trader Joe’s, but as wine grapes have been slowly taking over the county, the number of apple ranches has diminished to a very small number.

The Arc of Taste, a project of Slow Foods, which is preserving endangered food products, one species at a time, includes the Gravenstein apple among them. To read more about it, go to : http://www.slowfoodusa.org/ark/gravenstein.html

I am fortunate enough to have a large old Gravenstein apple tree on my property. I don’t spray, so the apples are not perfect and not for sale, but I do try to make some applesauce every year with the apples. This is my entry to the SHF event for August hosted this month by the Passionate Cook. The apples show in the photo above were early, (I couldn't wait for them to be fully ripe), so you don't see much red on the skin. The apple sauce was a bit tarter than when they are fully ripe as they are right now. This photo was taken right before I mashed them into a tasty, chunky sauce.

Gravensteins also make a stunning apple pie. Because they soften so much while cooking, even when you pile them high in the pie, by the time that you serve it the top crust arches over a space before you reach those lovely sweet tart cooked apples.

This weekend in Sebastopol is the annual Apple Fair, dedicated to the Gravenstein apple. If you get there, be sure to purchase one of the apple pies baked by the folks at the Community church. They have been making hundreds of pies for the fair for years and years. Also, look for Walker Apple Ranch apples. They are one of the handful of farmers still growing Gravensteins for sale. Then you can make your own authentic Gravenstein Applesauce.

Gravenstein Applesauce
4-5 large apples, peeled or unpeeled, stem and core removed, cut into 1” chunks
¼ cup water
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon

In a heavy bottomed pot, combine the apple chunks, water, sugar and cinnamon, Bring to a boil, cover, and turn down to a simmer. Simmer for 5-10 minutes until the apples are soft and tender. If you like chunky apple sauce, mash with a potato masher. The applesauce is now ready to eat warm, or you can cool it. For smoother applesauce, put the apple mixture through a food mill. The smooth applesauce is now ready to eat warm or cooled.

Gravenstein Apple Fair
Ragle Ranch Park, Sebastopol, CA
Aug 11 (10 am – 6 pm) & Aug 12 (10 am – 5 pm)
Live music, free parking, no pets
Admission: Adults - $10, Seniors - $8, age 6-12 - $5, under 6 – free
Sponsored by Sonoma County Farm Trails