Keeping it Simple

I still remember the worst apple dessert I’ve ever eaten. It was an apple “cobbler” at the restaurant next door to my apartment, and it was truly hideous.

Roger and I were both surprised at how terrible this dessert was because the restaurant itself is decent — your typical burger/salad/sandwich joint, with surprisingly excellent dinner rolls and occasionally interesting soups. So we figured dessert was a safe bet. After all, who can mess up apple cobbler?

Well, apparently this restaurant can. Aside from the fact that they put strawberry ice cream on top (we’ll let that one go for now), the taste fell somewhere between “medicinal” and “metallic.” How they accomplished this feat, I do not know. But I do know that we have never — ever — ordered dessert there again, despite the fact that we go there a few times a month.

What’s funny is that you don’t have to do much to apples to make them taste good in desserts. Sure, a little brown butter here, a little spice there, but less is usually more. The more you throw into the pot, the more the apples start tasting like a pile of spicy goo, rather than something sweet and honey-like.

Historically, my favorite apple tarts have been those along the lines of the tarte tatin — the apples bare and exposed, not overtaken by the caramel flavor but melding with it — that is, until I made this Alsatian Apple Tart. Here, the apples are bathed in a mellow vanilla custard and encased in a sweet buttery crust. There are no spices, no competing flavors, just the tender apples, soft custard and crisp crust.

Oh, and did I mention it’s also a snap to make?  You don’t even need to roll out the tart crust; you can just dump the raw dough right into the pan and press it up the sides (thank you, Dorie Greenspan).  When a delicious apple dessert is this easy to make, one wonders why an entirely repellent one would show up anywhere.  As long as a bad one never shows up in my kitchen, I guess I can’t complain!

I should also note that the so-called “Breakfast Series” will return soon — I just couldn’t resist posting this tart recipe.

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Apple to Apples

This week I was swept up by the Zeitgeist. I did something I never thought I’d do: I bought an iPhone. And, let me tell you, this gadget just might change my life. It is awesome.

My purchase got me thinking about Apple, which in turn got me thinking about apples. In my mind, everything comes back to food.

As luck would have it, we are in peak apple season, and the farmer’s market is teeming with them: Honeycrisps, Galas, Cortlands, Cameos, each seemingly tastier than the next.

All of the varieties above are great for eating out of hand. For baking in cakes and muffins, my favorites are Rome, Cortland, Golden Delicious and Winesap. I will use Granny Smith too, but I find that Granny Smith are a little too tart these days. But they are perfectly suitable for baking.

McIntosh, Fuji and Gravenstein apples make wonderful applesauce, and Golden Delicious, Pink Lady and Northern Spy are great in pies. For pies, I try to use a variety to make the flavor more interesting. You can find more information on what apples to use for what purpose here.

In the fall, you will often find spice cakes and apples paired together, and the combination is one of my favorites — when it’s done right. I find that a lot of recipes out there use way too much spice, drowning the flavor of the apple.

That’s why I love the two recipes below. There’s enough spice to warm up the flavor and scream “Autumn!” but not so much that you feel like you’re eating a mouthful of cinnamon and cloves.

When you use the right amount, the aromatic compounds in spices like cinnamon and allspice actually enhance the sweetness of fruits like apples. If I had more time, I could explain why (it probably has something to do with the phenols in the spices and the esters in the apples), but alas, the day is only so long.

So even though these apple cakes probably won’t change your life like some other Apple products, I think you’ll find they will, nonetheless, make your life a little sweeter.

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