Apple Betty Recipe

Apple Betty is an old-fashioned dessert that we don't hear a lot about these days. I think that is sad, because Apple Betty is quick, easy, and tasty. What more could a person want?  I am not sure why recipes for Apple Betty have fallen off of today's radar, but recipes can be found online and in church cookbooks and vintage cookbooks.

Another name for this dessert is Apple Brown Betty.Here are a few facts about Brown Betty that I found at Wikipedia:

"A Brown Betty is a traditional American dessert made from fruit (usually apple, but also berries or pears) and sweetened crumbs. Similar to a cobbler or a bread pudding, it consists of a baked pudding made with layers of sweetened and spiced fruit and buttered bread crumbs. It is usually served with a lemon sauce or whipped cream.

The dish was first mentioned in print in 1864.^[1] A recipe from 1877 uses apple sauce and cracker crumbs.^[2]

Apple Brown Betty was one of the favorite desserts of Ronald and Nancy Reagan in the White House.^[3]

Peggy Hill from the show King of the Hill likes to make apple brown betty."

Apple Betty is similar to a crisp, but it does not have oats in the topping. It is also similar to a cobbler, but the topping does not rise like a biscuit. Served cold or warm with milk, cream, or ice cream, Apple Betty has the essence of pie without the bother of making a crust. Here is my version, why not give this fall treat a try?

Apple Betty

4 cups of baking apples*, sliced
1/4 cup apple cider
3/4 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons butter

Place sliced apples in a lightly greased pie pan.
Pour cider over the apples.
Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a mixing bowl.
Cut in butter with 2 knives until mixture is crumbly.
Place crumb mixture over apples.
Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes or until apples are tender.


Do you have bread that is getting dry? This Apple Betty recipe from about.com uses bread crumbs instead of flour. I do have bread to use up, so I am going to grate it into crumbs to see if I like this recipe as well as I do my "Tried and True".

*Cortland, Granny Smith, Jonathan, and Yellow Delicious are good choices for this dish (or a combination of several).

Marcheta *Betty's Friend

Making Apple Cider, Part 4

“It's time to walk to the cider mill
Through air like apple wine,
And watch the moon rise over the hill,
stinging and hard and fine.”

     ~ Stephen Vincent Benét, John Brown’s Body

 

Part 4

Thirty bushels of apples have been picked, sorted, loaded, driven to the cider mill, unloaded, washed, chopped, mashed, and squeezed. Their dry innards have been fed to cows. What's left?

 

Why, the good part, that's what!

 

Every drop of juice gets piped to a large holding tank that is fitted with a row of spigots.

 

Bottling (or in this case, jugging) the cider is not quite as hairy of a chore as the one Lucy and Ethel faced with trying to keep up with boxing chocolates, but it does take a certain rhythm and several people to do the job efficiently. The good part about it is that if for some reason a person gets behind, say in capping for instance, each individual spigot can be opened and closed when needed. Jim never likes to be idle, so he generally helps bottle the cider.

 

 

Remember the big crates? Now empty of apples, it begins to fill with the finished product.

 

 

 

 

The jugs get rinsed off before adding another layer. When the order has been completed, the crate is then hauled back to the loading dock, and each jug has to be taken out and placed in the crates that we used for bringing the apples to the mill.

 

 

The 30 bushels of apples are now 112 gallons of fresh, sweet apple cider. All that is left for us is to hustle to get it sold. Some of our loyal customers have been with us from the start and, to them, getting their "Gibson Cider" means that Autumn is truly here. I am so thankful for them, as well as our newer customers and, of course, NorthSide Farmers Market. Our work would not be possible without them.

 

If you think that I am done blabbing about cider...better think again! Sure, apple cider is delicious as is, but it does not need to stop there. The next post will give recipe ideas.

 

Marcheta *...work is never done, never done.....

 

 

Making Apple Cider, Part 2

“I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, / And putting apples wondrous ripe, / Into a cider- press's gripe.”

Robert Browning

Apple cider has always been a popular beverage, but let's face it; cider did not have to compete with the likes refreshing soft drinks, like colas. Never fear: these days, consumer demand for natural and organic food makes pure apple cider more popular than ever.

Today's post explains the first steps the cider mill took in processing our order.

We had too many apples for the large crate, but not enough to mess with filling another. The extra apples were stacked on top of the load to be transported to the cider making area.

 The bags and crates were hand-loaded into the conveyor.  

 Next, a hydraulic lift tilted the large crate to unload it. As the apples are being moved from the crate to the conveyor, a worker stands by to remove things like leaves or large stems.

Notice that the workers wear ear protection. The noise from the machines can get as loud as a rock concert! 

The apples are collected into a large metal cage, where a stream of water washes away any debris. Then the apples go into a massive chopper. 

At this point, the apples are "half way there" in their transformation from solid to liquid. Tomorrow's photos will show how it is done.

Marcheta *step-by-step

Making Apple Cider, Part 1

 

Apple cider is a pure drink that has only one thing listed on the ingredient label: apples.

Lots of apples.

It takes a full bushel of apples to make three gallons of cider.

Lots of different kinds of apples.

Each apple variety lends its own special characteristic and flavor to the cider. At least three different types of apples are needed to get a good tasting blend.

The apple cider making process begins in the orchard, of course. Apples for cider are usually the ones that are not "pretty" enough or large enough to sell for eating/baking/cooking. After picking apples, we sort the ones for cider into old-fashioned wood crates, which we are slowly replacing with modern plastic crates as we find them at reasonable costs.

Why? After all, the wood crates work just fine and lend a traditional touch to this very traditional practice of making cider. Plastic crates are lighter weight, which is a huge plus for the person loading 30 or more crates of apples. The plastic crates are much easier to clean, and they stack perfectly on each other. And, the big bonus is that the plastic crates are standardized to hold four 1 gallon jugs or nine 1/2 gallon jugs. These factors add up to making transport and delivery much easier. Who wouldn't go for that? But still, I do like our wooden crates...some have been in service to us for 40 years. Can you believe that? I am amazed each time that I realized that 40 decades have passed since Jim and I said "I do" on September 22, 1973!

On a brisk September morning under a brilliant blue sky, Jim and I loaded up a pick-up truck with 30 bushels of apples, using both wooden and plastic crates as well as a few bushel baskets and even several feed sacks stuffed full of apples. Folks, let me tell you, that is a job in itself, apples not exactly being light-weight :)

The apples that went into this batch of cider were Cortland, Jonathan, Golden Delicious, and Red Delicious.

The next step in the process is the drive to the cider mill. State requirements for selling apple cider have resulted in many small cider mills going out of business. To sell cider, it has to either be pasteurized or treated with UV light, which kills e-coli and 5 other pathogens by skipping the boiling process. Boiling does affect the taste of cider, so we opt for UV, which keeps the cider "alive". 

Gone are the days when we could have several choices of having the apples "pressed" at mills within a few miles of our orchard. Now we must venture to Huron County, Ohio, to a state approved facility owned by the Meyer family. The drive takes a little over an hour through scenic Ohio countryside, so I don't mind it too much.

By the time we arrived a the mill, the sky was filling up with clouds and the air took a turn for the colder, which is perfect for making cider, as heat is its enemy. 

We backed our truck to the receiving area, where our apples were off-loaded from our truck and put in huge bins fitted for fork-lift machines. The one used for our cider was man-powered. 

In this picture, Jim and Anthony Meyers, owner of the mill, move our apples into the massive crate. 

Already a lot of work (months of taking care of the orchard, picking, and sorting apples, loading them and trucking to the mill, unloading the multi-colored fruit into the huge bin) has gone into making the cider. But the journey has just begun. Stay tuned to this blog for Part II tomorrow's juicy details :)

Marcheta *detailer

"Chopped Up" Apple Cider (curious? read on!)

 

Yesterday's lunch was another Total Local success story.

I know! 

It's a great feeling. I am proud to share the accomplishment with you in hopes that you will be inspired to design meals around what is local to your own area.

I had planned to make cider baked pork chops, but did not want to tie up the time involved for the baking. Because cider + pork is a marriage made in Heaven, I did not want to ditch the idea of a cider/ pork chop dish and  simply grill the chops. I put my brain cells to work and they came up with a new (for me) idea. 

I poached the pork chops in apple cider. The cider was fresh pressed from our own apples and the chops were from pigs raised by Russ and Mendy Sellman and purchased from their on-farm store, The Farmers Wife (see business page for information). 

When the chops were cooked and most of the cider reduced, I added a bit of oil to the pan and browned them up. Our meal included sauteed yellow squash, purchased at NorthSide Farmers Market, and fresh tomatoes from our garden. Dessert was pear pie, made by Mendy's dad, Dennis, served with milk from Hartzler's Dairy in Wooster and purchased at The Farmers Wife.

I gotta tell you, this "Sunday Dinner" meal was yummy, and it felt great to know that all the food except for the milk came from within a five mile radius of my house. The milk came from a dairy about an hour or so from here. 

Our garden was not the best this year. Thank goodness I live in an area that is full of dedicated market growers and that I have several opportunities a week to shop at farmers markets and/or stores like Russ and Mendy's. :)

Marcheta *living the good life

It's Cider Time!

This truckload of full apple crates will be heading to the cider press tomorrow morning. We still have a few apples to sort, but basically this is it for this time. Some trees are slower to ripen, but since we don't have a cold storage facility to keep this batch from rotting, we'll go with a smaller pressing. 

Of course, apple cider is a healthy and refreshing beverage, but did you know that it is also excellent for cooking? Adding cider to a pork roast or oven baked pork chops not only adds flavor, but it also tenderizes the meat.

Jelly can also be made from apple cider..after all, the juice has already been prepared! 

What yummy cooking ideas can you think of that include fresh apple cider?

Marcheta *thinking, thinking.....