Apples to Apples
My lifelong love affair with apples is steeped in tradition. The crisp, fragrant fruit has popped up in family meals, festivities, and occasions for as long as I can remember.
Each autumn as a child, I cherished apple butter spread thickly over buttery biscuits. I make some every year, both traditionally spiced and in a more exotic incarnation, with cardamom, my most beloved spice. Each time I make a batch, fond memories of mornings with my maternal grandmother, Nanny, wash over me. I know I’m not alone here; a fondness for the fruit seems to have found its way into so many people’s lives.
Many weekends in my childhood, apples would make a cameo at the family breakfast table. They’d appear in the form of what we then referred to as “fried apples.” Truer more to the spirit than to the letter of frying, Mom would melt a generous portion of either bacon grease or butter in her well-worn iron skillet, add chopped apples, sugar, cinnamon, and a bit of water to the pan, and simmer the mixture into spicy, soft submission. We’d pair the fried apples with homemade biscuits, scrambled eggs, and bacon or sausage and groan in hearty satisfaction.
Bobbing for apples was another way the fruits found their way into my youth. My mom loves celebrations and made a point of throwing truly memorable childhood birthday parties for my brother and me. She’d slice small openings into the sides of firm apples, tuck quarters into them, and send us and our ragtag crew of friends bobbing our way through a bucket of apples and water.
In the late ’90s, my mother relocated to a three-stoplight town in Western North Carolina. Along with stunning mountain views, her newly acquired 1800s-era farmhouse also included a prolific apple tree. With almost no effort on her part, the tree repeatedly produces a bountiful harvest come autumn. Deer, passers-by, and I all pilfer the tree (with permission, of course—the deer notwithstanding) for its outstanding specimens. Dark-skinned and perfectly round, her apples are some of the finest I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting.
Many are unaware that North America was once host to over 16,000 varieties of apples. At a lecture I once attended, the conservationist, author, and food and farming advocate Gary Nabhan revealed that roughly 9 out of 10 apple varieties once native to this land are at risk of permanent extinction. These are apple specimens that have grown and thrived here for millennia, apples perfectly suited for this soil, this climate, and this topography. As a result of Nabhan’s lecture, the significance of the disappearance of heirloom apples—a fruit so dear to my family—left an indelible mark on me. It motivated and compelled me to maintain a close relationship with this generationally beloved fruit.
My mother’s apple tree, the apple orchard I visit every autumn in Henderson County (the nation’s seventh largest apple-producing region), my own apple trees, and all of the future apples I intend to plant, nurture, harvest, and consume will keep the fruit a focal point of my own growing family’s history. I plan to never stop engaging in a bit of buttering, frying, bobbing, and much, much more with apples in my home. As it’s said, apples don’t fall far from the tree, and that’s just how my family and I like it.
About the author: Candler, N.C., homesteader Ashley English is the author of seven books. This recipe and essay appear in Handmade Gatherings: Recipes and Crafts for Seasonal Celebrations and Potluck Parties by Ashley English, now out in paperback. See smallmeasure.com.
Rosemary and Sage Apple Hand Pies
These lovely little treats make pie-eating eminently transportable, perfect for autumn picnics, tailgating, Halloween parties, and other seasonal celebrations. The aromatic, resinous flavors of sage and rosemary provide a perfect foil to the fruit’s sweetness.
Makes 12-14 hand pies
You Will Need:
Pie Dough
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
- 1 cup butter (2 sticks), chilled and cubed
- 3/4 cup ice water
Filling
- 1 ½ pounds apples (such as Gala, Granny Smith, Jonagold or a blend of baking apples), peeled, cored, and roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- Zest of 1 lemon
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons fresh sage leaves, minced
- 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves, minced
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
Egg wash
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon cold water
Cinnamon sugar
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
To Make:
Prepare the pie dough:
1) Mix the flour and salt together in a medium-large mixing bowl. Using a pastry cutter or two forks, incorporate the butter until the mixture resembles a coarse meal, but with several pea and lima bean-size butter bits in the mix.
2) Slowly drizzle in the ice water. Stir with a mixing spoon until the dough starts to clump. Transfer the dough onto a floured work surface and fold it together into itself using your hands. The dough should come together easily but shouldn’t feel overly sticky.
3) Divide the dough in half and shape into two flattened disks. Wrap each dough ball in cellophane and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Prepare the cinnamon sugar:
Combine the cinnamon and sugar in a small mixing bowl. Stir to fully blend. Set aside.
Prepare the hand pie circles:
Remove one of the chilled pie dough disks from the refrigerator. Roll it out into a 12- to 14-inch circle on a lightly floured surface. Cut out six to seven 5-inch rounds, re-rolling scraps as necessary. Transfer the dough rounds onto a parchment- or silicone mat-lined cookie sheet. Repeat the above steps with the second chilled dough disk. Refrigerate both cookie sheets while preparing the filling.
Prepare the filling:
Place all of the filling ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Stir to fully combine.
Assemble the hand pies:
1) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Remove the sheets of chilled dough rounds from the refrigerator. Mound 1 to 2 tablespoons of the apple mixture on one half of each dough round. Depending on how many dough rounds you cut out, you may have a bit of filling left over.
2) Fold the other half of the dough round up and over the apple mixture. Crimp and seal the edges together using the tines of a fork. Using a pointy-tip knife, cut out a small X over the center of each hand pie. This enables steam to vent off while the pies are baking.
3) Beat the egg yolk with the cold water. Brush lightly over the top of each hand pie. Sprinkle each of the pies with a pinch of cinnamon sugar each. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the crusts are golden brown, rotating the positions of the cookie sheets mid-way through the baking time.