How I am Testing Apples for Baking This Season

Today I wanted to take a moment to share with you how I am testing the baking qualities of different apples this season.

I hope everyone’s week is off to a good start. What kind of apples have you been eating so far this month. Please hit the comment button below and share:

Part of being a food blogger is the need to have to update your content over time. I have written many, many, many blog posts on apples over the 15+ years I have been doing this. Most of you found me through one of those blog posts and made your way here. I want to have better information on baking different apple varieties. The best way to do that is try and test out as many apples as I can and show how they do when baked.

Now I am not going to make an entire apple pie with every apple. What I do is I make a Single Serving Apple Cobbler in my Air Fryer. Yep, you can bake in an air fryer. It’s basically a convection oven with a basket! I set it to 325 degrees and bake with a small pan that fits in my air fryer. It takes about 10-12 mins. Click/tap the link above for the recipe.

At the top of this newsletter is a picture of the one I did with Ginger Gold apples. I recommend if you are using them to use ones that are more green in color than yellow because they will be more tart.

Here are a couple other I have baked up recently:

This one I made with Zestar! apples. The apple baked up soft, but still had their shape. I prefer a more tart apple but this certainly wasn’t bad, no apple cobbler really is.

I had always heard that some people like McIntosh apples for baking but they didn’t hold their shape at all and became applesauce. I trusted that idea, but wanted to see it for myself and sure enough the apples broke down quite a bit. It wasn’t completely applesauce yet. I think the short baking time prevented that.

I am 25% of my way to eating 100 different varieties this season and we are half way through September, so I am feeling good about my chances. I am heading to tour an apple orchard that grows mostly heirloom varieties in Washington on Friday, so I will be adding more to the list.

Check out my post to see what I have eaten so far:

Chasing 100 Apples This Season 🍎

A HUGE thank you to those that have been supporting me by being a paid member. I appreciate it so much! And I appreciate those that like, comment, share, and answer my polls too.

• Become a premium subscriber all earnings go to my gas & apple fund, and you'll gain access to all of my e-books, including my newest:

Tart! How to Find Your Apple in a Sweet Apple Loving World

• Buy me a bag of apples through the Buy Me a Coffee website as another way to support my mission to eat 100 apple varieties.

Don’t forget to listen to this week’s podcast episode if you haven’t already: