[HN Gopher] The best apples for apple pie
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The best apples for apple pie
Author : djoldman
Score : 36 points
Date : 2022-09-24 21:39 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.seriouseats.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.seriouseats.com)
| beardface wrote:
| No mention of Grenadier apples, unfortunately. Perhaps
| understandably so.
|
| They're impossible to find in most shops due to them not storing
| well and being quite ugly. We have a tree in our garden and the
| apples are outstanding for pies, crumbles, cobblers, and
| Charlottes. They can hold their shape well, or turn to a
| delicious puree if cooked longer.
| werber wrote:
| It's a bit impractical but I was hoping to see a last round of a
| combination. I certainly have some baking plans this fall with
| this information
| sumnole wrote:
| If you're looking for a good combo for apple pie filling, I've
| found honey crisp and granny smith to be the perfect
| combination of sweet and tart.
| zwieback wrote:
| Big fan of Serious Eats but it seems weird he would dismiss the
| multi-variety approach, I always do this. What doesn't make sense
| to him (mix of soft and firm) is precisely why you want two
| varieties. Most serious apple pie recipes suggest at least two
| varieties and it is the best approach.
| tptacek wrote:
| If you find bad cooked apple texture off-putting, as Kenji
| does, then it doesn't help to mix flavorful bad-textured apples
| into your pie, because you're going to end up with some amount
| of off-putting texture; better, according to this approach, to
| satisfice on flavor and optimize on texture.
| jonstewart wrote:
| I've often seen this recommended and it just seems like a way
| to avoid a bad outcome. I grew up with really good apple pie
| and think the use of a good pie apple beats the central limit
| theoremness of the multi-variety recommendation.
| daed wrote:
| My grandmother was quite the baker, and was known in particular
| for her pies. For apple she swore by the Pippin. She was very
| upset when they became uncommon in supermarkets.
|
| I've carried on her tradition, and as a substitute I do half Fuji
| and half Granny Smith. I think it provides a nice balance. But,
| I'm always on the lookout for Pippins.
| alexchamberlain wrote:
| When I make apple crumble (it's a British variation on apple pie
| I guess), I use a mix of dessert/eating apples (say Pink Lady)
| and cooking apples (say Bramley). The cooking apples give you the
| structure, whereas the eating apples give you sweetness. I chop
| the eating apples up into tiny cubes, so they basically dissolve.
| vmilner wrote:
| Are Bramleys readily available in the US? - I was surprised not
| to see them mentioned. (I live in the Uk with a Bramley tree in
| my garden.) EDIT: Apparently they are Uk only. Wow.
| zwieback wrote:
| I got curious, I live in Oregon and could grow them but never
| seen them but it sounds like some people grow Bramleys. Of
| course there are about 10 million varieties here and probably
| some similar thing exists, people get very particular about
| their varietals.
| vmilner wrote:
| In the Uk, at least in terms of what's available in normal
| shops you have all the varieties of "eating apples", (which
| you pick up and bite into in the normal way) and then the
| "cooking apple" which is roughly twice the size of an
| eating apple and is too dense and tart to be eaten in the
| normal way but is used in apple pies with lots of sugar and
| maintains much of its density through the cooking process.
| There is only one readily available variety- the Bramley.
| julian55 wrote:
| As far as I know the UK is the only place that has
| special varieties of apple for cooking. Cooking apples
| are usually large, tart and cook to a pulp. There are
| many varieties but Bramley is by far the most common.
| pjsg wrote:
| I have a Bramley tree in my orchard here in Massachusetts, so
| they are available. I have never seen them in a store or
| otherwise commercially available.
|
| Look at this as an opportunity to grow your own food!
| tptacek wrote:
| Kenji considers this in the article and rejects it, since his
| goal is to get a uniformly good texture without any mush.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| I want this but for apple sauce, I was in Indiana once visiting a
| friend and we stopped at a Meijer (a regional grocery store
| chain) and while we were getting apples (they had a larger
| variety than I'm used to) a little old lady exclaimed that they
| didn't normally have this certain variety of apples and we should
| get them for apple sauce, she said just heat them up on the stove
| and add cinnamon to taste, but that they weren't eating apples.
|
| We bought some and it really was that straightforward, they
| sauced themselves with a little heat and we added a little extra
| sugar to taste but not much, it was both easy and a little
| magical.
| Aunche wrote:
| The empire apple one confuses me. Everything about it seemed good
| besides it being too sweet, but that's something that can be
| easily fixed by adding less sugar.
| anamexis wrote:
| It sounds like they added fairly little sugar to begin with,
| and that the apples themselves are cloyingly sweet when cooked.
| jonstewart wrote:
| Jonathans. At least, the Jonathans in the Midwest. The texture
| becomes something like one of those modern cuisine
| emulsion/gelees, where it's a toothsome shell that then bursts
| open with juice. They're a very juicy apple generally, with good
| tartness.
|
| And, NOT Jonagold. Jonagolds are insipid and lead to a mushy pie.
|
| It's hard to find Jonathans these days. On the east coast
| Northern Spy can be a suitable replacement. Staymans are
| recommended as a good pie apple, but they're not even close in my
| experience.
| jcynix wrote:
| My choice would be a red Boskoop[1] and, if I can find it
| (rarely) a Glockenapfel would be fine.
|
| [1] https://www.orangepippin.com/varieties/apples/belle-de-
| bosko... [2]
| https://www.orangepippin.com/varieties/apples/glockenapfel
| TN1ck wrote:
| Definitely one of the best apples for baking as it's very
| acidic. I'm always disappointed when I eat an apple pie that
| lacks in acidity, actually surprised by this list as it
| includes mostly very sweet apples which result in a non
| surprising low rating.
|
| One can always add some lemon juice if one is forced to bake an
| apple pie with substandard apples at hand, works quite well.
| mjwhansen wrote:
| My sixth grade science fair project was testing apples for apple
| crisp. The winner? Pink lady!
|
| Edit: on a more serious note as a seasoned baker: for the typical
| person who makes maybe one pie a year if that, blind baking your
| bottom crust and making sure your top crust has adequate
| ventilation will do more to impact the flavor of your pie than
| finding the _perfect_ apples. (If you don't vent the crust, they
| will steam and get mushy; if you don't blind bake the bottom, it
| will be soggy.)
|
| Fussing over apple varieties when your crust is underbaked is
| like spending weeks picking the perfect JS framework for a side
| project.
| itslennysfault wrote:
| They really missed out by omitting Honeycrisp apples. I got a pie
| from the bakery at my local grocery store made with them recently
| and it blew my friggin' mind. So good. All other apples can go
| extinct.
| mkaic wrote:
| Ah, a fellow Honeycrisp devotee. Always good to meet another
| member of the Fellowship of Delicious Apples. Have you tried
| the newest engineered Honeycrisp successor, Cosmic Crisp?
| Imagine a Honecrisp, but twice the size, twice the price, and
| somehow even crispier. They're still new to the market since
| they were developed quite recently but I found some at Trader
| Joe's last fall and they are absolutely _divine_. Like candy
| that grows on a tree.
| bigtex wrote:
| Yep, my wife puts them in her apple pies that she sells at
| the local farmer's market and they always get rave reviews.
| Northern Spy is better, but basically a unicorn when it comes
| to actually finding them.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I'm not familiar with Cosmic Crisp, here in apple country on
| the eastern shores of Lake Michigan the new hotness over the
| last few years has been "SweeTango", a cross of a Honeycrisp
| with a Zestar.
| nolan879 wrote:
| To me the cosmic's flavor was a little too sweet, I've
| noticed that the availability is also much scarcer than
| honeycrisp (at least in my area). I will agree that the
| texture was MUCH crisper though!
| mkaic wrote:
| To each their own, I see what you're saying though. They
| taste sweeter than a real apple should legally be able to
| taste. And yeah, availability is hit-or-miss, probably
| because they were invented so recently and there's just not
| enough propagated saplings yet to meet demand.
| rdsnsca wrote:
| Gravenstein should be on the list.
| zwieback wrote:
| Yes, surprisingly good. Our neighbor always brings over big
| paper bags full of Gravenstein and they are great for baking
| and also drying.
| gweinberg wrote:
| Cheat and use pears.
| jcynix wrote:
| No need to cheat, just make a french "Tarte Tatin" with pears.
| Or apples, or prunes. Delicious either way.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| The best apple pies I've made were with Calville Blanc d'Hiver
| apples[1]. Hard to find. There's a vendor at our farmers market
| that sometimes has them. When I see them I immediately plan for
| making an apple pie.
|
| [1] https://www.orangepippin.com/varieties/apples/calville-
| blanc...
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| The best apple pies are made with crab apples. Most crab apple
| trees are almost inedible since they aren't bred for flavor, but
| there are some really good crab apples out there.
|
| Eaten raw, most crab apples are too tart even for pies, so you
| want to find one that are edible raw. It'll probably still be
| considerably tarter than a Granny Smith, but there should be
| great flavor behind the tartness.
|
| Add more sugar than a normal apple pie, since you're getting less
| from the apple.
|
| The resulting pie is sweet & tart & flavorful with great texture.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| There's no botanical difference between crabapples and "normal"
| apples per se it's the same plant just crabapples are allowed
| to let the wonky apple genetics deal do its thing. So what kind
| of crabapple you get is just random, some taste better than
| anything you can buy, most are hard sour and astringent. Apples
| are also like this if planted from seed and left alone.
|
| And because of the size they have a higher skin-to-flesh ratio
| which does make them a little bitter but also more complexly
| flavored if you balance it out. And for the same reason they
| have more pectin and cook up thicker, which is good for pies
| once you account for it and ideal for jams.
|
| So yeah overall I agree, people should taste the crabapples
| around them and see what they can score. It's one of the most
| easy/fun/accessible/practical intros to urban foraging for
| sure.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I have to disagree. The best apple pies use a range of apples.
| By adding different types of apples you add different texture
| and flavors to your pie. I will typically use 2-5 different
| types of apples and I bake apple pie all the time. I'm
| certainly no authority, just feedback I've gathered personally
| as the apple pie maker in the family.
|
| The reality is most people can cut up apples and add sugar. The
| hardest part is the dough, the apples might not even matter, if
| the crust isn't good the entire pie fails.
| chihuahua wrote:
| I'm amazed that the author would even include Red Delicious in
| the comparison. It's known as the worst apple in the world. Thick
| skin, mealy interior, either bitter or no flavor. I don't know
| why anyone would buy these for any purpose, and I don't know why
| anyone grows these. It's like putting North Korea at the bottom
| of a list of 10 best places to live - any other item on the list
| would improve the list.
| pwinnski wrote:
| It's known by many, but still sells incredibly well. Until
| 2018, it was the best-selling apple in the US! I believe it is
| still the most-produced apple, since it's used for items that
| are sold, and is still a top seller.
|
| It needs to be included so that _more_ people come to
| understand how horrible it is for anything!
| elromulous wrote:
| JKLA is incredibly methodical and thorough. I imagine he
| included them for completeness.
| kylebyproxy wrote:
| Maybe I'm crazy, but I remember when I was little red delicious
| were crisp and sweet and juicy and perfect in every way. Then
| over the years, they became more and more hit-or-miss, until
| they became the mealy, flavorless kind you're describing. I've
| always been curious what the truth is there.
|
| Reminds me of the first time I had the opportunity to travel
| abroad. Until that point, I had always thought I hated bananas.
| All the stores I'd ever been to in the US only sold
| Cavendishes. They're stiff and stringy and have very little
| flavor. But the ones at the produce stand weren't like that at
| all; they were vibrant, sweet, custardlike, and melted in my
| mouth. My second thought after the initial shock of how
| delicious the first bite tasted was the realization that I'd
| been lied to the agricultural industry for decades and the
| hollow sting of betrayal from being sold-out by my countrymen.
| ramses0 wrote:
| Take a look at Small Red Delicious v. Large Red Delicious.
| Nowadays you can only find large's, and larges used to be
| "mealy and icky", while the small red delicious were
| wonderful. Everybody dunks on Red Delicious apples, but I've
| tended to like them when they're firm and crisp. There's lots
| of other varieties around and I haven't found a new
| consistent favorite yet, but glad to see such an systematic
| overview of apples! :-)
| jamroom wrote:
| I was a produce manager at Safeway in the 1980's. Both Red
| delicious AND Golden delicious were great eating apples. Not
| sure much anymore and I'm not sure why.
| jonstewart wrote:
| Red Delicious used to be good, supposedly, and I bet they'd
| be good if you found a small old orchard.
| bmurphy1976 wrote:
| I came here to say more-or-less the same. Red Delicious are
| mass-produced garbage. Feed them to the pigs instead.
| zwieback wrote:
| I know this is the minority opinion but I buy them sometimes
| for a change of pace. I like the slightly bitter flavor and the
| ones I buy are always firm and crisp.
| wrycoder wrote:
| The author gave the Red Delicious the lowest rating, while,
| surprisingly, the Golden Delicious got the highest rating.
| biotinker wrote:
| Golden Delicious and Red Delicious are not related to one
| another except in name (and in the sense that all apples are
| related). They do not have a known common lineage.
| cush wrote:
| Many horrible fruits and veg explode with flavor when cooked.
| Rhubarb and Quince for example are unbearably tart when raw,
| and yummy when cooked up with some sugar
| ranger207 wrote:
| I don't know how I've managed it, but across the half a dozen
| grocery stores I've regularly used, I only rarely gotten a bad
| red delicious. Sure I have gotten some bad ones, but on average
| they're perfectly fine. Then again, I'm not the biggest fan of
| honeycrisp, so maybe it's just me
| bigtex wrote:
| My wife bakes an excellent apple pie and she has found the
| Honeycrisp apple to be a great baking apple. Granny smiths were
| not cutting it. We have also found the Northern Spy Apple to be a
| great baking apple but they are nigh impossible to find except
| through honeycrisp.com who sells out in a day or so every year.
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