girlfiend

On Sunday we celebrated the fall and the sunshine by visiting Linvilla Orchards and picking apples. Overwhelmed by the bounty, we filled a box with Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Idared, and Staymen Winesap. We went a little overboard.

Boyfiend gets two with his lunch, we’ve given a bunch away, and I’ve been cooking apples like mad. Last night Mix came over just in time to help me bake. We started with two dozen Apple Strudel Muffins.

These are awesome muffins. (I think I overfilled the cups which is why they look a little flat. When I doubled the recipe I ended up with too much batter, but it certainly did not affect the taste.) The vanilla really makes these muffins far superior to a similar Joy of Cooking recipe I’ve tried in the past.

When the muffins cooled we started the Jewish Apple Cake. Since I only have one tube pan I didn’t double the recipe. I just added more apples than the recipe called for. We haven’t actually tasted it yet. I didn’t take it out of the oven until after 10:30 last night but after cooling it looked perfect.
I hope it tastes as good as it looks. After making the batter and arranging the apple layers I realized that I forgot to add the oil. By realized I mean I knocked it off the counter and onto the floor and Mix’s leg. We had to dump the batter and apples out of the tube pan and remix it. I’m sure it will be fine, but moving on to the next project was no picnic with the oil slick on the floor.

The next project was setting up to make Apple Butter. Since it’s a crock pot recipe that calls for cooking on the high setting for an hour I chose to cook it on high for an hour last night, rather than drag my ass out of bed an hour earlier this morning. After cooking on low today, my whole house smells incredible. I have a feeling that the finished product is going to be much sweeter than I like, but it smells so good I don’t care.

It appears that most apple recipes don’t actually call for all that many apples so I still have more than a dozen apples left. When I got home from work I made a big pot of apple sauce and I can’t decide what to do next. Since I have an entire cake and the half dozen muffins we haven’t given away I’m looking for an apple recipe that freezes well. Any suggestions?