After our apple picking party, Elliott and I washed a bucket full of green beauties in order to bake some tastey treats.

Instead of the usual apple pie or cobbler, I went for a simple variation on apple crisp with piles of thinly sliced apples. The topping is a dusty brown sweet crumble of butter, white and brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. I baked it an extra few minutes to get the apples all bubbly and sticky sweet on the bottom. Success! I will bake this again.

Our giant bowl of apples had been reduced by only a third from the apple crisp. The next morning I set aside some time while Coop was napping to make another apple delight. This time I went for something a bit less sweet, but very satisfying. I peeled and grated most of the remaining apples for an ‘apple lemon bread’ which turned out quite fabulous (see the photo above). The lemon zest gave the apple bread a nice citrus-ey bite. If you like your bread a bit sweeter, here’s an easy trick. Take a bit of fruit preserves (I use raspberry) and heat up a few spoonfuls to a thin consistency. Pour the fruit syrup over a slice of bread: yummmm so good!
Here’s the recipe if you’d like to give it a whirl:

Apple Lemon Bread
1/4 c  butter
3/4 c  sugar
2 eggs
2 c  flour
1 tsp  baking powder
1 tsp  baking soda
1 tsp  salt
2 -4  med green apples, peeled and grated (about 2 cups, the more the moister)
1-2 tbsp  lemon zest (if you like lemons, more is better)

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Butter one loaf pan. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the eggs until blended. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a separate bowl. Add the dry mixture and grated apple alternately to the creamed mixture. Add the lemon zest and mix until well blended. Spoon into loaf pan and bake for 50-55 minutes. Remove from pan and cool. Enjoy!