Pink Lady, Braeburn, Granny Smith — Based on the huge selection of produce at your local grocery store, you’d think every season is apple season in Minnesota. On a good year, however, the true apple harvest starts around the end of July and doesn’t stop until the end of October.

Some swear by Honeycrisp. Other crave crab apples. I love Haralsons, but I’m beginning to learn that a good eating apple isn’t necessarily a good baking apple. What feels soft at the store, might be perfect for homemade apple sauce. Basically, you gotta pick the best apple for the job.

As summer fades into fall, there’s always a pan of apple crisp in my fridge. I’ve tried a lot of local varieties, but I’m still on the lookout for the perfect apple.

Tuesday night, I cut up a bag of State Fair apples. These little two-toned devils were deceptively tart and deceptively soggy. As I like my apples crisp, crisp crisp, the State Fair apple was not so great for snacking. However, it was a very good contender for baking.

Had I been thinking, I would’ve made a crumble crust with local honey, but the brown sugar offset the tartness nicely. I also mixed the apples with a little cinnamon, a pinch of garam masala, and a squeeze lemon. Forty-five minutes later, we had a very tasty dessert.

What is your perfect apple? Where do you go to find your favorites?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 10:32 am and is filed under Apples, Plums + Tree fruits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.