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By AETNA SMITH [email protected]
Wednesday, October 02, 2002     Page: 1D

WAPWALLOPEN – Savor the smell of apple pie in the oven or the taste of
apple butter on toast? Or better yet, love how the mouth waters just before
crunching into a Red Delicious?
   
Pennsylvania is a land overflowing with apples, from the Golden Delicious
to the McIntosh, and it’s difficult at best to choose among them. If you want
to please – make that thrill – your palate this fall but don’t want to pick
the same old apples as you do every year, allow us to help.
    Apple orchards the region over are gearing up for the apple picking and
selling season and apple enthusiasts for a season of apple festivals. Variety
will be a key word, and it may help to turn up armed with some apple know-how.
   
At Heller Orchard in Wapwallopen, retired farmer and current co-owner
Quentin Heller pulled out a few of his top sellers he was willing to discuss.
   
For starters, the Golden Delicious apple, with its light-yellow skin and
creamy flesh, is good for cooking and eating, he said.
   
“It’s one of the few apples that shrivels to show that it’s overripe,”
Heller said.
   
The McIntosh, distinguished by its red and green color and squat shape,
tends to ripen faster than other apples, Heller said. Meanwhile, Roger Jayne
of Jayne’s Orchard in Laceyville, called the McIntosh a summer apple, which is
typically soft and good for eating and baking. It has a slightly tart taste
and is usually very juicy.
   
“The McIntosh is not usually good for pies, if you like your (pie filling)
to be a little firm,” Heller said. “But it’s fine for me; I like it kind of
mushy.”
   
One apple rarely baked is the Red Delicious because of its tendency to lose
its hardness when cooked. And contrary to what some think, Heller said, its
elongated shape and deep-red color aren’t necessarily distinguishing features.
   
“You mostly get that long shape and color in Washington state,” he said.
“It’s really hard to get that color and that shape in the East. But our
quality is just as good.”
   
As crunchy and sweet as a Red Delicious, but excellent for sauce, baking
and freezing, is the light-green Mutsu/Crispin.
   
Heller said the fruit, a cross between a Golden Delicious and the Japanese
variety, Indo, first was developed in Japan. When it was grown in New York
state, the name was changed to Crispin because of its crispness.
   
The Cortland, with its red on pale yellow skin, is a McIntosh-type with a
somewhat tart flavor, Heller said. It has a shape similar to a McIntosh and
ripens quickly “but seems to hold its form better than a McIntosh” when
baked, Heller said.
   
Teresa Serfass, an employee of Graver’s Orchard in Lehighton, said the
Cortland is good for pies, applesauce and for eating.
   
But the Jonagold, a hybrid of the Jonathan and Golden Delicious apples,
merits the highest of honors from Heller’s wife, Ruth.
   
“It’s the best cooking apple there is,” she said. “It can be used in
pies, dumplings, apple crisp and apple strudel and won’t get mushy after
cooking.”
   
Quentin Heller said his apple season lasts from August until April or June,
depending on the crops, and this season has presented some challenges. A frost
that hit directly after a warm spell in April all but ruined the Hellers’
Mutsu/Crispin crops, but he says the rest of the apple crops were in “fairly
good” shape.
   
Heller suggests that apple-lovers store their fruit in the refrigerator in
a plastic bag. They’ll keep for about two weeks.
   
But what if you don’t care much for cooking with apples and would rather
someone do all the legwork for you? In other words, what if you just want to
eat apples?
   
With the change of seasons comes an explosion of apple festivals throughout
the state.
   
At the Pennsylvania Apple and Cheese Festival in Canton, for example,
patrons can expect all things apple, with apple pie and cheesecake-making
contests, auctions, apple-butter-making demonstrations and a
“dress-an-apple” contest.
   
The festival, set for Saturday and Sunday, also promises apple-orchard bus
tours through the Landon family orchards, including the Cedar Ledge and
Landon’s Orchard, said Roger Tracey, the head of the festival committee.
   
“The Cedar Ledge Orchard has (apple) trees that have been there since the
1930s, and Landon’s Orchard, in existence since 1866, has a pick-your-own
orchard, and the business makes apple cider on site,” he said.
   
For more information about the Apple and Cheese Festival, see
www.rekindlethespirit.org or call 673-5500.
   
Another sensory diversion for you might be the Applefest in Franklin, from
Friday through Sunday, where crisp apple strudels, pies, cookies and a
Franklin specialty – Apple Dapple Cake – will tease the tongue.
   
Franklin resident Joyce Woodard created the Apple Dapple Cake, and it has
since become an Applefest tradition to serve it, said Jerri Gent, executive
director of the Franklin Area Chamber of Commerce.
   
An apple pancake breakfast will be served from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, and
apple-pie-baking and pie-eating contests will take up much of Saturday. During
the 20th anniversary festival weekend, expect live music, an Applefest dance
and a foot race as well.
   
The Franklin festival also sells its own apple cookbook with recipes from
“all over,” Gent said. For festival information, call (814) 432-5823 or
access www.franklin-pa.org.
   
Back in Wapwallopen a few weeks later, Heller Orchard will co-host the 14th
Annual Apple Festival to benefit the St. Peter’s and St. John’s churches of
Wapwallopen. On Oct. 19 and 20, head out for apple pie, other apple desserts
and cider, plus drawn wagon rides and blacksmith demonstrations.
   
“The Life and Adventures of Johnny Appleseed” will be the theme of the
Community Church service at Heller Orchard at 10 a.m. Oct. 20.
   
For information, call Heller Orchard at 379-3419 or see the Web site at
www.councilcup.com/AppleFestival.
   
FRANKLIN’S APPLE DAPPLE CAKE
   
By Joyce Woodard
   
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
   
2 cups sugar
   
3 eggs
   
3 cups all-purpose flour
   
1 tsp. baking soda
   
1/2 tsp. salt
   
2 tsp. vanilla extract
   
3 cups Delicious apples, peeled and chopped
   
1 cup coconut
   
1 cup walnuts, chopped
   
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Mix oil and sugar; add eggs, flour, soda,
salt and vanilla. Beat until well blended. Stir in apples, coconut and nuts.
Place in greased tube or bundt pan. Bake for an hour and a half.
   
Topping:
   
1 cup brown sugar
   
1/2 cup butter
   
1/2 cup milk
   
Mix above ingredients in small saucepan. Heat and stir until blended. Boil
2 minutes. Have topping ready as cake is removed from oven. Pour over hot cake
and allow it to soak in. Let cake cool completely before removing from pan.
   
Comparing apples with apples:
   
Golden Delicious: uses – all purpose; color/shape – light yellow;
flavor/texture – sweet, crisp and juicy
   
McIntosh: uses – all purpose; color/shape – red and green color, squat;
flavor/texture – slightly tart, crispy
   
Empire: uses – all purpose; color/shape – mainly solid red; flavor/texture
– slightly tart, crisp
   
Red Delicious: uses – usually eating only; color/shape – deep red and
elongated; flavor/texture – sweet, crunchy
   
Mutsu/Crispin: uses – all purpose; color/shape – light-green color;
flavor/texture – moderately sweet and firm flesh; other – cross between a
Golden Delicious and the Japanese Indo variety
   
Cortland: uses – all purpose; color/shape – red on pale yellow;
flavor/texture – sweeter than a McIntosh; other: McIntosh variety
   
Jonagold: uses – all purpose; color/shape – red with splashes of green,
McIntosh shape; flavor/texture – from tart to sweet and firm; other – cross
between a Jonathan (tart apple with a greenish red color) and the Golden
Delicious
   
Taken from interviews with orchard growers and the Web sites of
www.nyapplecountry.com and www.paapples.org.