Sorry I haven’t been posting as frequently as I had been.  I was in a beautiful wedding this weekend and it took up a lot of time – and then of course there is catching up on sleep post-wedding as well.
Back to some sauce-analysis.  We’ll move on today to the Valstar. 
The Valstar is one of our newer varieties.  When we plant a new variety we try not to go too overboard in case no one really likes them.  We did not have to worry about that with the Valstar – these have definitely been a customer favorite. 
The Valstar is crisp with a lively flavor that's sweet, yet tangy. Perfect in fruit trays, for snacking and also makes great applesauce.
Like normal, I peeled, cored and sliced up my apples and stuck them into the crock pot.  I cooked these for about about 3 hours and I should have probably cooked them for a little less time.  They had a really good aroma as they could. The sauce would have been chunkier had I not left it in the pot so long.  The sauce starts out with a little sweet flavor but leaves a tart taste in my mouth.  It wasn’t my favorite but I could see that with a little cinnamon or other seasonings added (or other apple varieties) that the Valstar would be a delicious sauce. 

Photo by Friends in Photography

I do have to say that Pip just sucked the Valstar sauce down though.  I have to admit – I don’t think she’s too particular about flavor when she decides what she’ll eat or not.  She pretty much will eat anything we put in her mouth right now.

Past apple tests:

• McIntosh
  
• Gala
  
• Tolman Sweet
  
• NW Greening
  
• Granny Smith
  
• Jonathan
  
• Baker’s Mix - October
  

Inevitably, if you walk into our apple store or stop by our table at a Farmer’s Market and ask us, “What apples make the best sauce,” – we’ll answer ‘Baker’s Mix, of course.’  With all this sauce testing I’ve been doing I decided I probably should try out a baker’s mix to have a true comparison.  I wanted to be sure that our recommendation is truly what I feel makes the best sauce.
So, I grabbed some MacIntosh, Cortland, and Idared apples (which is our current Baker’s Mix – don’t forget this changes throughout the season and even on any given day…you may get more of a variety…it’s whatever we have that’s good for baking!) and brought them to my kitchen to put it to the test.
I peeled, cored, and sliced the apples with my apple machine and turned the crock pot on. You can see in this photo some of the apples mushed – other’s didn’t.  I personally like my sauce with a little texture so this was definitely a thumb’s up for me.
When I tasted this sauce – it made me smile.
It had a fantastic flavor – the perfect blend of sweet and tart.  It was nice to see that our recommendation of Baker’s Mix was spot on. 
Because of this experiment I am finding out what other apples do work in their singular form, but at least so far…nothing has beat the Baker’s Mix.

Past apple tests:

• McIntosh
  
• Gala
  
• Tolman Sweet
  
• NW Greening
  
• Granny Smith
  
• Jonathan
  

On Deck – Valstar, Jonagold, Fireside, Golden Delicious, Fuji, Silken, Honeycrisp

 

Seriously…this looks AMAZING!

We had many disappointed customers when our Jonathan’s sold out extremely fast this year.  There just weren’t many on the trees…not exactly sure why.  But I can tell you – we are planting more Jonathan trees and after making applesauce with them I will definitely keep encouraging Jared to keep the stock up. 
When the guys came in with 10 ‘found’ Jonathan I immediately snatched them up for my applesauce experiment.  I peeled, cored, and sliced five of the apples and cooked them down like normal.It did not take long for them to cook down to a nice, smooth sauce that was wonderful tasting.  I would describe it as a true apple taste – tart, but not too tart.  A really rich applesauce – especially for one with just a single apple in it.

One thing that customers have always told me about Jonathan’s is that if you leave the skins on they make a beautiful pink sauce.
So I took the other five apples and chopped them up – just removing the core and cooked them up.   Again, it wasn’t long before I had this gorgeous pink sauce – seriously – what a rich, beautiful color!  AND, the skins seemed to sweeten the sauce up making it a truly delicious sauce.  Now, if I were to feed this to my baby I would have put it through a food mill, but since we adults munched on it, I just left the skins right in there.  They really weren’t too noticeable.

Past apple tests:

• McIntosh
  
• Gala
  
• Tolman Sweet
  
• NW Greening
  
• Granny Smith