quiltingcandy, how interesting....I'm going to look from now on!

My basic rule for cooking with apples is the shape. If it's round, it's a cooking apple. If it's pointed (more like a tooth) it's an eating apple. Red Delicious is more tooth shaped, Granny Smith are more rounded.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule but this is a pretty good one for judging varieties you don't know well.

Gravensteins make great applesauce because they just break down like that with very little effort :) Honeycrisp are delicious and not very pointed but have a high moisture content which is one of the reasons they don't store well and should be eaten around harvest time. I understand that they also grow quite large if left on their own, bigger than consumers really want.

Opal is one of the newer eating varieties I rather like.

Red Delicious and Golden Delicious are two very different kettles of fish. I have yet to meet the Red Delicious that I liked. They are really quite horrible. After about two chews you end up with a mouth full of straw. The only way I can eat them is with fruit dip.

The Golden Delicious and really delicious and juicy for eating and are very good for cooking, too.

But the best apple for a juicy pie is Wolf River. They were really prolific this year. Almost everyone who has a tree around here had difficultly find enough people to give apples to. I am very sad to see several bushels of the apples still hanging on the tree. I got at least 6 bushels myself. These apples are huge. One can weigh a pound and more. And they are late apples. They get sweeter only after a frost. This year it was 21º on a Sunday in October and we picked these apples the next Tuesday. I still have a few in the basement. Very few seed companies sell these but these are what I grew up with, so I try to get some in an apple year. They only have apples every other year.

I've always used Granny Smith. My MIL always used Jonathons. I tried the Jonathons finally and they held their shape nicely, but I didn't use quite enough sugar and my pie was a little tart.

Here in Washington we get a lot of Honeycrisp. Very juicy and they hold their shape well.

For eating I buy Gala.

I always used Jonathan, Gala or Granny Smith apples. I can’t find Jonathan apples anymore and they were my favorites.

Extra sugar will not reduce tart. That's why there is always way too much sugar in a lemon pie. Tart is a taste you like or you don't like. If you don't really like it, I suppose the solution would be to use different apples.

Great tip! It really makes sense.

~ C

I'm a McIntosh fan. That's my "secret" ingredient for apple pies.