This week I spent some time looking into varieties of apples for baking. I used sunrise apples in my first pie because I had some on hand. They worked ok – but are not ribbon worthy pie apples according to the internet.
An interesting take-away from my research is that an apple is measured both by its taste and texture. The interesting part is that while different varieties have inherent characteristics, you can play with the outcome by varying cooking methods:
- More acidic apples (EG granny smith) tend to be firmer when cooked – but you can affect the firmness of any apple variety by adding an acid
- Pre-cooking the apples can counter-intuitively improve firmness
- Mixing different varieties of apples can achieve a balance of flavour and texture
Next pie I’d like to try Golden Delicious and/or Braeburn apples. They rated highly for flavour, and adding lemon juice may give some added firmness that they lack on their own.
Also interesting is that the grocery store does not scratch the surface on apple varieties. Saltspring island used to be the apple epicentre of BC (I think) – there’s still growers there with 100+ varieties: http://appleluscious.com/
