The last apple variety in our orchard to ripen is what we think is an Arkansas Black. The orchard was here when we bought the place and it has been an adventure to identify some of the apples.
The apples are beautiful for fall and winter decorations as they are extremely dark red (as you can see in the picture below.
The skin is thick and the apple is dense. The ones in our orchard have a spicy tart taste. Most people prefer to use these for cooking/baking only, but I like to eat them raw or chopped up in salads.
Because I know that the apple won't break down when cooked, I chose it for making cinnamon apple rings. The recipe, which remember from years ago, used cinnamon red hot candy, water, and sugar to give the apple rings a nice red color as well as a sharp cinnamon flavor.
I decided to make up a new recipe by using apple cider instead of water and sugar.
I used about two tablespoons of candy to two cups of cider. This works well for flavor, but the apples did not turn very red, probably because cider is dark. Next time, I'll go back to water/sugar.
After coring and peeling the apples, I melted the candy in a deep frying pan over low heat. This needs to be stirred a lot because the candy has a habit of sinking to the bottom and sticking to the pan.
When the candy was melted, I turned up the heat and added the apple rings. It took somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes for the apples to cook (I wasn't watching the clock because I was busy peeling apples for sauce...another story for another day).
Here is the finished product. Tasty but not "showy". Oh, well, live and learn!
Marcheta *living and learning
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