Apples to Apples

We are lucky enough to live so close to Apple Hill, which is just east of Placerville, where there are acres and acres of apple orchards. One Girls Team member was lucky enough to head up the hill and return home with almost 50 apples!!

With so many apples to work with, the Girls Team decided to make TWO delicious treats tonight - homemade apple sauce and Apple Pie Pops!


We started with the Apple Pie Pops. Following this recipe, we had no trouble making the perfect pops with a flakey crust and warm apple-cinnamon filling.

The best kitchen tool, chopped 5 apples in minutes!

Apples, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar...

In the future, we would use thicker sticks or place them at the very top of the dough. After filling and baking, the pop was a bit too top heavy to be supported by the skinny lollipop sticks. 

Apple pie filling!!

In addition to a circular cookie cutter, we used a leaf-shaped one for Fall.

Finished product.

Success!! Because the pie pops themselves were too heavy for some of the sticks, the Girls Team plans to bake these without sticks for Thanksgiving. Tiny treats in place of traditional pie :)

Next up: Homemade Apple Sauce!

Even though the peeling and slicing of 16 apples was a bit tedious, this recipe made sweet, cinnamon flavored apple sauce in less than 45 minutes. All of the ingredients get thrown in one pot, sit over the stove for a half hour, and then mashed with a potato masher while hot. Simple, but incredible!

Jonathan and Gravenstein apples.

Brown sugar and a cinnamon stick. 

 Simmering and smelling great!

At first we were concerned about the left over liquid when the apple sauce was done cooking, but after mashing it down, the sauce was the perfect consistency. 

The recipe recommends eating the apple sauce with vanilla ice cream, we were too excited to try it so we just ate it straight from the pot. We plan to pour it on our oatmeal tomorrow morning for breakfast :)