It is not prime apple season in Ontario. We still have a few local varieties lingering from the fall harvest, but nothing in comparison to what we had a few months ago. This, however, is not an excuse to ignore a baked apple craving.

Every time I go to bake something with apples, I ponder on which variety is the ideal specimen. Searching online, I end up with more than a handful of different suggestions, settling on a combination of what’s in the fridge and what looks most appealing in the store. Sometimes luck strikes, other times I regret my random decision making. This time around was a little bit different. As I did my usual pondering, I came across The Apple Lover’s Cookbook. Immersed in pages of cooking tips, tasting notes, and mouthwatering recipes, I really just wanted to taste the apples. I decided to conduct my own little experiment.

Unlike the Ontario apple orchards in March, my local grocery store was blooming with apples.
Here are 12.



When in season, Honeycrisp is my standard go-to apple for eating. It’s super crisp and juicy with a wonderful balance of sweet and tart flavours. Macintosh and Cortland apples are my favourite orchard apples. Recently picked, they have juicy white flesh and the most amazing flavour. Tasting a few pieces of each variety before they went into the oven, I remembered why I haven’t had a Red Delicious apple since childhood, and was also pleasantly surprised by a few varieties that are usually ignored.

The verdict? Honeycrisp remained as one of my favourite raw eating apples, Fuji was a close second. I was surprised by the Empire apple. It was juicy, flavourful and pleasantly tart. I really liked its small snack size. Pink Lady and Sonya were also wonderful apples. The Red Delicious, with its thick skin, bland flavour, and mushy texture, must be called “delicious” for blatant encouragement, it sure needs it.

Cooking the apples produced some interesting results. I had some expectations based on the notes in The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, but some apples didn’t bake as expected. The Granny Smith apple was supposed to hold its shape, while the Empire, a close Macintosh relative, was recommended for apple sauce. The results were a little shocking. Take a look at the bottom left image of the cooked apples. The Empire is the first apple (top left) and to the right of it is the shapely Granny Smith.

The likely problem with my experiment was that all of the apples were cooked for the same amount of time. The poor Granny Smith was probably ready to be out in half the time, while the Empire needed a little more to break down. We don’t always have that control though. When immersed in a batter or topping a pastry, the apple often has little say in the cooking time.

Although the process was not ideal, I did gain some insight on which apples to try with a baked apple recipe. The ideal apple should be sweet and tart, soft but held together, and have an appealing look. The Apple Lover’s Cookbook recommends the Pink Lady, for its flavour, firmness, and lovely pink colour when baked – I agree. I really liked the Empire for its sweet/tart balance, softness, and size. I’m also going to bake another Granny Smith, this time a little more observant of proper cooking time, just out of curiosity. It’s too tart to make a good baked apple, but after the first round of results, it deserves a second chance.

Check back soon for the results!