The Empire of the Golden Delicious

I was hoping today for an inspiring or edgy or perhaps even coy title. Something like The House of the Rising Sun or Day of the Triffids. No, no, no, not Day of the Triffids. But I offer what I offer. And what I offer is about apples.

In the fall I always head out to an orchard and buy apples, both for cooking and eating. I preferred for the longest time Golden Delicious apples for eating while typically buying Northern Spys for cooking. Northern Spys; there's a tale of intrigue in there somewhere. Civil War and all that. But at times I try something different for cooking: Jonathans or Galas or Cortlands or, to be honest, whatever's cheap. This year I chose Empire apples.

They're. Yummy. I tried one just to taste it (why else would you try one?) and you know what? They're better than that old favorite Golden Delicious.

Now I don't want to cook them. The Empire apples I mean. I want to love them and shine them upon my shirt and eat them all up. Yet I'm not sure I should drop another twenty five bucks a bushel (apples seem expensive this year: I can usually find bushels for around $15) just to make Marty's World Famous in His Own Small Mind Applesauce. 

Life is hard.

The boss of the applesauce

Last night I made a batch of Marty's World Famous Applesauce. If you haven't heard of it, you're in the wrong world. But it's so good everyone should try it. So as a public service, today I'm going to tell you how to make it.

First, get apples. I recommend red delicious, mackintosh, or the northern spy variety. They're okay to eat but make better sauce. Do not use gala or golden delicious; them's eatin' apples, and it's a sacrilege to cook those. They're that good. Similarly, using Mutsu apples for applesauce is a sin even if you aren't religious. Eat them as they are you heathen.

Anyway, peel and core the apples. How many, you ask? I dunno. How much applesauce do you want? I make my batches using 40 - 50 apples, and a good peeler/corer can do that many in about an hour. If you want to make a smaller batch I ask, why would you want to? To repeat: this is great applesauce. You don't want a wee bit. That's just a tease. It would only make you insane.

Now, put those peeled apples in a big pot and boil them down. Put about six cups of water in the pot with them to start. Without some water you'll burn the apples. But too much water isn't good either, as more liquid will form as the apples boil down. Stir regularly and stir properly, bringing the apples at the bottom of the pot to the top. You can handle that, right?

When everything's boiled down to a saucy consistency, with some small chunks of soft apples left for bulk, add sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The sugar makes it sweet, the cinnamon makes it cinnamony, and the nutmeg...well, I don't know what the nutmeg does. But if it ain't there your applesauce will not be good, and you will have failed Applesauce 101. Miserably.

How much sugar and stuff? I don't know. I just mix it to taste, so mix it my taste. How do you know my taste? I can't tell you everything you know, heh-heh.

Oh all right. Between four and five cups of sugar and about two teaspoons of cinnamon and one teaspoon of nutmeg. Don't forget the nutmeg. It's important for some reason.

Now, you eat it. You will be singing my praises as you do. If you've successfully made it to my taste of course.