Friday Food Finds
26: An affinity for apples
My kids and I (along with friends) had our first apple-picking excursion of the season last weekend. Well, actually we set out to pick raspberries, but we couldn’t resist the crisp, juicy apples luring us to the nearby trees after we had filled our berry containers. In the end, it’s the apples I’ve been most excited about this week; they’ve found their way into recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert.
Apples are great to cook and bake with because they are both accessible — local, in-season apples are especially inexpensive and plentiful — and exceptionally versatile. From sweet to savory dishes, apples pair harmoniously with so many different flavors. In The Flavor Bible (a phenomenal resource if you don’t know it), Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg list over 100 foods and flavors in their entry on apples. And that by no means covers all of them.
You won’t get far in searching for apple recipes without seeing cinnamon pop up in a list of ingredients. The two make up an age-old flavor pairing that many of us might trace to our own youths. One of the most vivid food memories I have, in fact, involves tasting my dad’s butter and cinnamon baked apples for the first time. They were pure comfort and joy.
This recipe for Brown-Sugared Apples and Cream, from Emma Laperruque at Food52, jumped out at me because it reminded me my dad’s cinnamon-kissed, butter-bathed apples. Instead of butter Emma uses cream to enrich her apples, yet the combination of dairy fat, cinnamon, and apples is wonderfully present. Although the dish can be enjoyed either cold or warm/hot, I only tried the latter because, well, nostalgia. And I was not sorry to have a pool of warm, slightly caramelized, apple-flavored cream to spoon up once I had devoured the apples.
These Apple and Cinnamon Muffins from Nigella Lawson are another great example of spice meeting fruit. But they also highlight an additional apple flavor affinity: honey1. As a package, these muffins have it all: the wholesome nuttiness of spelt, a plurality of complementary hearty flavors, and a textural contrast between the crunchy almond topping and the soft, moist interior.
I will note that when I made these muffins, I did add a 1/2 teaspoon of fine sea salt to the muffin batter and a pinch to the topping. For me, the salt was indispensable in both components, and I’m puzzled by why it was not included in the recipe.
As homey as sweet apple recipes make me feel, it’s the savory ones that I think are really fun to explore. I’ve long loved focaccia topped with fresh fruit, though I’ve never tried an apple version. I thought this was the week to change that, but this Apple Focaccia with Gruyère and Rosemary from Williams Sonoma left something to be desired in flavor and texture.
Mostly the focaccia dough lacked enough salt (that seems to be a theme this week), which I noted when I initially read through the recipe but failed to do anything about when preparing my dough. The low level of salt not only meant that the dough was not seasoned properly, it also made the fermentation process move too quickly2. Whether that contributed to the lackluster texture of the finished focaccia, I'm not sure, but I was also not impressed by the tighter, somewhat dense crumb that was not at all focaccia-like to me.
While this recipe didn't yield the focaccia I was hoping for, I did want to call out the topping. Apples pair beautifully with almost any kind of cheese, as well as with the heartier herbs of fall. If you have a favorite focaccia recipe already — I’m still on the hunt for mine, so please share if you do — I would say skip this recipe and simply try topping your five-star focaccia with your own combination of cheese and herbs. I used thyme and raclette cheese3 on this focaccia and was mighty pleased with my choice.
Moving savorier still, I tried a duo of dishes this week that introduced me to some new apple flavor combinations. This Tahini Honey Crisp Apple Salad, from Elaine at Wandering Chickpea, prompted me to add sesame/tahini to the extensive list in The Flavor Bible. And this Roasted Chicken Breast with Molasses and Apples, from Blair at The Seasoned Mom, made me wonder why I have no memory of ever pairing apples with molasses; it was a full-flavored dish that resulted in deliciously moist chicken.
In making the pumpkin seed clusters for the salad, I had some issues with my sugar and maple syrup crystallizing, which I think was the result of stirring too much. If you wait to stir once the sugar has started to bubble, you should be okay. I had no issues with the chicken dish, though if I had had more time, I might have tried to reduce the sauce at the end of roasting. It was a little soupy.
That’s it for this week. May apples be your muse in the kitchen well into the fall. Their versatility knows few bounds. Questions and comments are most welcome either by heading to the comment section via the button below or by responding to this email directly to me.
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Best,
Charlotte
The honey-apple pairing also historic religious significance as well: In Jewish tradition, apples are dipped into honey during Rosh Hashanah to express and symbolize the hope of a sweet new year.
Salt slows down fermentation because it draws water away from the yeast and bacteria, thereby slowing down how quickly the yeast can grow and multiply. Slower fermentation results in deeper bread flavor because of the extra time the yeast has to work.
Raclette is a Swiss-style cheese most famed for its namesake dish of melted cheese served over boiled potatoes. It’s a favorite in our family.