Three Very Good Reasons to Bake with Apples
Apple season on the East End has a way of filling both the farm stands and the roads. I am considerably more enthusiastic about the apples than the traffic. Fortunately, what comes home in the shopping bag can make the inconvenience seem worthwhile.
These three fall apple desserts give you a choice of cake, bars or a free-form tart. They also give you a useful answer to the question that follows an ambitious afternoon of apple picking: what on earth shall we do with all of them? Each recipe has already earned a place in our archive and in our baking.
A Family Apple Cake
Elizabeth Karmel’s family recipe gives an apple-picking haul a very good destination. This is the cake I associate with fall on the East End, when the farm stands are busy and the weekend traffic suggests that everyone has had precisely the same idea. A homemade apple cake makes a persuasive consolation.
Read the full recipe on Chewing The Fat
Apple Pie by the Square
A buttery shortbread base supports a Granny Smith apple filling and a walnut-studded oatmeal topping. These are apple pie in a form that can be cut into squares, carried to a gathering and eaten with or without ice cream. At our house, waiting for the ice cream has not always been an option.
Read the full recipe on Chewing The Fat
A Free Form Apple Tart
Claudia Fleming’s version is a lovely choice for a fall dinner, and its free-form shape gives it a character all its own. It deserves a place beside the more formally dressed holiday pies.
Read the full recipe on Chewing The Fat
Choose the cake for an afternoon gathering, the bars when you need something that portions easily, or the crostata for the end of a dinner. There is no need to make all three at once, although I would hesitate to say that too loudly within Andrew’s hearing. He has never regarded an extra dessert as a serious problem.
