Best Apples For Pie Baking

By zircon50

Ingredients

• APPLES TESTED:
• 1 . Braeburn
• 2 . Cortland
• 3 . Empire
• 4 . Fuji
• 5 . Golden Delicious
• 6 . Granny Smith
• 7 . McIntosh
• 8 . Red Delicious
• 9 . Rome
• 10 . Royal Gala

Preparation

Step 1

Red Delicious

Flavor: Very sweet and one-dimensional.
Texture: Mealy flesh that turns to mush when cooked. Skin is thick and can be quite bitter. They may look good on the supermarket shelf for a long time, but are only really tasty when fresh picked.
Pie Rating (1-10): 1; Completely mushy with a very one-dimensional, cloying flavor. This reminded me of bad applesauce.
Best uses?: Eating out of hand, but only when very fresh.

McIntosh

Flavor: Sweet and mildly tart with very white flesh.
Texture: Tender and slightly grainy.
Pie Rating (1-10): 3; it holds up better than, say, Red Delicious in pies, but still turns quite brown and mushy.
Best uses?: Apple sauce or eating out of hand.

Braeburn

Flavor: Very sweet and mildly tart with a unique citrusy aroma, similar to Granny Smith (of which it is a descendent). It becomes almost pear-like in flavor when it cooks.
Texture: Quite crisp and not much graininess. This texture seems to indicate that indeed it has a fairly strong structure of pectin.
Pie Rating (1-10): 7; it manages to soften fully while still retaining a good deal of texture when baked into an apple pie due to its density. It could be slightly firmer when baked. Great golden color.
Best uses?: Pies, tarts, sauce, eating plain.

Rome

Flavor: Very mild when eaten out of hand, not very sweet, but develops in flavor when cooked.
Texture: They have a thick skin and very firm flesh. Despite having a reputation as being a good baking apple, I found them unsuitable.
Pie Rating (1-10): 3; They turn dark brown and mushy as they baked.
Best uses?: Sauce.

Fuji

Flavor: Quite sweet and fresh tasting, not cloying.
Texture: Crisp flesh that stays good for a long time. The texture is almost pear-like in its moisture level and crunchiness.
Pie Rating (1-10): 2; The mild flavor does not get enhanced by baking. Watery but tart.
Best uses?: Eating out of hand.

Golden Delicious

Flavor: Sweet, tart, and almost buttery. Well balanced and rich, especially when cooked.
Texture: Very fresh it's quite crisp, but can border on mealy when held for too long off the tree. When baked, it softens but retains a bit of texture
Pie Rating (1-10): 8; the best flavor I got out of any single apple—this is what apple pie should taste like. I just wish it were slightly firmer.
Best uses?: Pies, sauce, apple butter.

Cortland

Flavor: Similar to a McIntosh, but much sweeter and tarter. Like its cousin, it's got very white flesh and a mild flavor.
Texture: Tender and slightly grainy,
Pie Rating (1-10): 4; it does quite well in pies texturally—softening without breaking down—but lacks in flavor.
Best uses?: Apple sauce or eating out of hand.

Empire

Flavor: Very sweet and very tart with a good level of juiciness, they are a cross between a McIntosh and a Red Delicious, and show flavors from both.
Texture: Despite their tender/grainy ancestry, their texture is quite firm and crunchy.
Pie Rating (1-10): 3; when baked, they have nice texture, but become cloyingly sweet. The acid is still present, but it's not enough to fight against the sugar level.
Best uses?: Eating out of hand.

Gala

Flavor: Mild and sweet with a fair amount of tartness, they're one of the most popular apples around for their small size and good resistance to bruising.
Texture: Very thin-skinned with a grainy texture.
Pie Rating (1-10): 6; when baked, they hold their shape, but the graininess can get overwhelming. I prefer my pie apples to be supple and smooth-textured.
Best uses?: Eating out of hand.

Granny Smith

Flavor: Very bright and tart with a distinct citrus aroma and white wine-like nose. Texture: Very firm, crunchy, and slightly grainy.
Pie Rating (1-10): 5; it holds up almost indefinitely when cooking. They have good brightness, but not much apple-y flavor.
Best uses?: Eating out of hand.

Now some very astute readers might have noticed the one glaring exception here: Braeburns are low in acid, yet remain relatively firm as they bake. Why is this?

It all has to do with air. Braeburns are relatively dense apples with not much air in between their cells. (You can see this by dropping them into a bucket of water next to say, a McIntosh. Braeburns will float up much more slowly.) Apples with lots of air will collapse on themselves like a deflating ballon as they cook. Very dense apples—like Braeburns—will retain their shape better, even as they completely soften.

So as you can see, for the most part texture certainly does improve with more tartness, but good texture along does not a good pie make.

Some folks suggest mixing two varieties of apple—one to provide texture, the other for flavor—but this never made sense to me. Say we combine some Granny Smiths with some Romes. What you end up with is a pie that's got nice firm chunks of apple interspersed with brown apple mush. It's like replacing every third model in a runway show with a Vogon. The models are still there, but you're too distracted by the gross stuff to be able to enjoy the nice stuff at all.

Nope, a single apple would have to do it for me, and the best ones in the running are the Golden Delicious and the Braeburn. They're the ones I use for all of my baking purposes.


Now, the question is, since both Golden Delicious and Braeburns have great, well-balanced flavor, but neither is quite firm enough when baked, is there something I can do to improve upon their texture?

Indeed there is, and this article is riddled with hints on how to do it. Unfortunately, we've run out of time today, and will have to get to the final installment in our pie-athon next week.

A Last Word On Freshness and Seasonality:

You may think that the whole "local, seasonal" movement is getting a bit out of hand, and oftentimes, I tend to agree. But there are certain foods for which it truly makes sense. Apples for pies are one of them

See, if you aren't buying apples directly from the orchard or picking them yourself in the fall, chances are that they've been in long term storage. Apples are stored in atmospherically controlled rooms for up to 10 months before being put on supermarket shelves. This holding wreaks havoc with their cell structure, causing them to ripen at a vastly increased pace once they're taken out of storage.

This means that if you buy an apple from the supermarket in, say, June, most likely that apple was picked last October. Within a day or two, it goes from being crisp and bake-able to mushy and unsuitable for pies.

My advice? Don't bake apple pies except in the fall and early winter. If you absolutely must have that spring or summer pie, look for apples that are refrigerated and get them into your own refrigerator as soon as possible. Do not let them sit at room temperature for too long before cooking them.

As for what to do with the leftovers of 20 pies? If you ask me nicely, I might share with you a great way to make friends with your neighbors.