Every season seems to have its own desserts that just say, "I am part of this time of year." Summer is ice cream, late fall and early winter are sweet potatoes, late spring is strawberries, early fall for us is apple goodie. What is apple goodie? Other than my youngest daughter's new favorite drug? It is a wonderful and simple dessert that is not too sweet and oh so good.
I remember my mom making apple goodie every fall. Only recently have I rediscovered this excellent and healthy treat.
I use apple sauce for my apple goodie, you could use sliced apples if you prefer. The recipe I am going to give will be measured with apple sauce.You will need to modify the measurements if you wish to use apple slices.
Apple Sauce
You can use store bought or homemade. If you use store bought I would suggest getting the unsweetened. The reasons I make this suggestion are; you can decide how sweet you want the end product to be, and I personally want to avoid as much corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup as possible.
I want to minimize, as much as possible, the amount of glyphosphate that my family consumes. No one can debate that GMO corn contains traces of this chemical.
If you have access to apples making apple sauce is easy. All you need is apples, a pot, and a food processor or food mill.
This time of year apples can be easy to come by. I am surprised by how many people have apple trees that are loaded full of fruit, who are going to do nothing with that fruit. There is no harm is stopping and asking for those apples. The worst that can happen is they say no. If they say yes, offer them some apple sauce when you are finished, you might just make a new friend. Another good thing about apple sauce is you can use the ugly apples.
I think the best applesauce is made with different types of apples. Each apple gives its own unique contribution to the whole. You do not have to make the sauce with several varieties, but do not be afraid to use whatever apples you can come up with.
If you are using a food processor you will need to peel the apples first, if using a food mill just cut them up. Put the slices in a pot (you can even use your crock pot if you want), add just enough water to keep the apples from sticking. Bring to a slow boil and boil til apples are tender. This can be anywhere from 5 to 25 minutes depending on the type of apples you are using and how ripe the apples are. Once the apples are tender, you can transfer to food mill or food processor in small batches to make into sauce.
Congratulations! You have made applesauce. If you made too much you can either can it or keep it in the fridge for about a week. You may just use all of your sauce fairly quickly if your family is like mine.
Caution: When making applesauce at home most of the time the fruit will begin to darken. You can slow the process by adding lemon juice but even doing that my applesauce is always darker than what you buy in the store.
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I like using the food mill because I can skip the peeling step and when I get done I have all of the wonderful peels that have been cooked to put into my compost pile.
Congratulations! You have made applesauce. If you made too much you can either can it or keep it in the fridge for about a week. You may just use all of your sauce fairly quickly if your family is like mine.
Caution: When making applesauce at home most of the time the fruit will begin to darken. You can slow the process by adding lemon juice but even doing that my applesauce is always darker than what you buy in the store.
Apple Goodie
I am going to give you the recipe for a 9 X 13 pan. You can adjust this recipe up or down depending on your needs. Just a word of caution: I normally do not use a recipe and I am horrible about not using exact measurements. When I made the last batch I actually measured everything so I could get it as close as possible. (Now you see why I don't write recipes very often)
Ingredients
- 3 cups Oatmeal (I use quick oats)
- 2 Quarts applesauce (8 cups)
- 1 1/4 cup flour
- 1/2 cup brown sugar divided
- 1/2 cup white sugar divided
- approximately 3 Tablespoons Cinnamon
- 3/4 cups butter melted
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
First I put the applesauce in a glass baking dish, add 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar, and 1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon. Mix well. I always taste the applesauce at this point to see if it is sweet enough. I tend to like mine on the lightly sweet side, if you want yours sweeter just sprinkle a little brown sugar first and mix. If it is still not sweet enough for you alternate between the brown and white sugar.
NOTE: Brown sugar is nothing but white sugar mixed with molasses. I have made this before by mixing honey with molasses and it turned out great, but since this is our first year with bees in a while I did not have honey to make this. I still use the granular sugar for the topping.
Topping:
Place oatmeal and flour in a bowl with remaining brown and white sugar. Pour in melted butter and mix well. All of the dry ingredients should be damp when you get done with this step.
Spoon topping on top of applesauce and spread evenly. Do not press the topping down, it should be just floating on the applesauce. Sprinkle remaining cinnamon on top.
Cook for 35 minutes. Allow to cool at least 10 minutes.
Tip: I like the topping to have a golden brown color. At about 28 minutes I change the oven from bake to broil, but keep the temperature set at 350.
That is it enjoy.
I don't do a lot of recipes, but below are the ones I have written. Some of them were fairly early in my blogging (you can tell) The one in the middle is what I call the world's easiest fudge only two ingredients (one is hard to find except around Christmas and the last one is my Sweet Potato Casserole (very sweet)
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Affiliate Link Disclosure: The post may contain affiliate links. I may receive compensation for links, endorsements, testimonials, or recommendations for any products mentioned on this blog. Any time you use one of our links for Amazon, if you purchase something The Rural Economist receives a small commission and it doesn't cost you any more. Even if you do not purchase the items I list. In this way you will help support us trying to teach people about self reliance and homesteading. Thanks for your consideration.
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