To kick off our Michigan Apple Display Contest, let’s talk apples.
Consumers choose between apple varieties because they prefer a specific texture or tartness to sweetness. Often; however, customers know little about how each variety can be best used. What’s the best baking apple? What’s the best apple to make apple sauce? Providing a little extra information alongside your apple display can spark interest in attempting to make homemade apples sauce or bake an apple turnover, in effect, boosting sales.
There isn’t one variety essential for baking a good apple dish. A great baking apple is defined by its resistance to breakdown in the oven and its balance of sweet and tart flavors. Here are a few bake-hardy varieties to guide your customers to find the perfect apple for their next recipe.
Cortland
It’s pure white flesh creates a smooth, clean appearance and boasts a desirable tartness.
Jonathan and Jonagold
Tart and tangy, these varieties excel as pie apples.
Honeycrisp
Tastefully sweet and versatile. Great eaten out-of-hand or mixed with a tart variety in pies.
Granny Smith
Maintaining its shape well when baked, this variety is tart, perfect for pastries with sweet ingredients or paired with honeycrisp apples for a sweet-tart combination.
Braeburn
Spicy and sweet, Braeburns keep their shape and provide a hint of fall spice to recipes.
Golden Delicious
Use this naturally sweet apple variety to cut out added sugars. They make excellent apple sauce and apple butter, as their texture is less firm than other varieties.
Make customers aware that there are many more varieties excellent for baking, Gala, Winesap, and Melrose among them.
So, go out in your department this harvest season and spruce up those apple displays with a little FYI.