Apple Appreciation- 4 Interesting Ways to Make Use of Your Apple Harvest
Dried Apple Cinnamon Slices
Dried apple slices are a nice sweet snack to have throughout the winter, the crunch is amazing! They are basically sweet chips. First slice as many apples as you can fit into your dehydrator and in a large bowl add sugar and cinnamon over top of the apple slices. Mix the slices well so they all have cinnamon on them and let them sit in the bowl for a couple hours or overnight. After the apples are coated, place them all in a dehydrator, leave space between the slices or they will stick together. Save the liquid at the bottom of the bowl! The amount of time the apples need in the dehydrator is very dependent on your dehydrator and how full it is, keep checking your slices and when they can easily snap, they are ready.
Apple Cinnamon Syrup
With the liquid from the bottom of the bowl you saved when making apple slices you can make a delicious apple cinnamon syrup! Add the liquid you saved to a sauce pan and over gentle heat, simmer off the water. The amount of time you simmer for depends on how thick you want your syrup. This is a great sweetener, I use it for overnight oats to make them taste like apple pie. The apples from the tree I pick from are more tart than your supermarket apples but the syrup that is made from the juices and sugars is absolute perfection.
Apple sauce
The apple sauce that I make I only use in my baking to add moisture to whatever it is I'm making, like cake, brownies or applesauce can be used as a substitute for oil or butter in baking. To make apple sauce, peel and core your apples well and blend in a food processor until smooth, you may need to add some water but do so sparingly and a tablespoon at a time. You still want the apple sauce to be thick.
Apple juice
Chop up your apples and add them to a blender with a little water so the blended apples aren't too thick. Strain your juice through a cheese cloth. Do not throw out the strained apple solids you can use them to make leather in the oven! Put the juice into large jars and let it sit for a couple of days in the fridge, this will give the little solids time to sink to the bottom. When you see a build up at the bottom of the jar pour the juice into another jar, doing your best not to disturb the solids that have gathered at the bottom. Its important to store your freshly made apple juice in the fridge.
Let us know how these worked for you!