Apple Slices Recipe {Chicago Bakery Style Apple Squares} (2024)

FAQs

What are the best apples for baking apple squares? ›

Best Apples for Apple Pie Bars

Here are some I suggest: Sweet apples I love: Jazz, Honeycrisp, Pink Lady, Gala, Fuji, and Cortland. Tart apples I love: Granny Smith, Braeburn, Jonathan, and Pacific Rose.

Fuji has a sweet flavor and incredibly crisp texture that makes it perfect for slicing. It adds a great crunch to salads and sides. Gala has thin skin and tender flesh that allows it to add a tang to salads without leaving stringy skin behind. Honeycrisp is an all-star apple.

It's best if you slice apples about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick. Any thicker, and they won't cook through by the time your crust does. Any thinner, and they'll dissolve and leave you with a soggy bottom crust.

For the best pies, crisps, and other baked treats, apples need to be firm enough to hold their own during the cooking process. We call these apples “baking apples” and to namedrop, they include Braeburn, Cortland, Honey Gold, Jonathan, Fuji, Gala, Granny Smith, Haralson, and Newtown Pippin.

Honeycrisp (Sweet)

They're extra juicy and very crisp with a honey-sweet flavor that translates wonderfully into baked goods. AND they are the star of the show in my Honeycrisp apple sangria.

“Commercially, apple slices are treated with ascorbic acid [to prevent browning],” Watkins says. Any type of citrus juice—lemon, lime, or orange juice—will work here; pineapple juice will do the trick too. These fruit juices contain citric acid, which slows the chemical reaction and prevents browning.

A Salt Water Brine Keeps Apples Unbrowned for Days

Then simply soak apple slices in the brine for 10 minutes, shake them dry, and put them in airtight containers in the fridge. The apples will look like the moment they were cut, even four or five days later.

Opal apples aren't the only ones resistant to browning. There also is the Arctic apple produced by the Canadian company Specialty Fruits, Inc. — but they're genetically modified. Specialty Fruits uses gene silencing to produce an apple resistant to browning.

If you want your apple slices to stay fresh looking for longer, one trick is adding some lemon juice or vinegar before placing the sliced fruit in an airtight container. The acid helps prevent the apples from oxidizing and turning brown.

How do you keep apple slices crisp? ›

To use this method to prevent apples from turning brown, create a water bath for your apple slices with a ratio of 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to 1 cup of water. Soak the apple slices for 3 to 5 minutes, then drain and rinse them. This simple step should keep your apples from browning for several hours.

Cinnamon & Spice: Mix equal parts sugar and cinnamon with a dash of nutmeg and sprinkle on apple slices for a bitesize flavor of apple pie. Have little helpers in the kitchen? Let them mix everything in a Ziplock bag.

About 3/4 of an average sliced or cubed apple equates to a single cup. However, it really depends on the size of your apple and how you'll be cutting it.

If the recipe calls for 6 cups of sliced apples, you'll likely need about 8 medium-sized apples, or about 2 pounds of medium-sized apples. Now go fill your home with the scents of the season and bake the day away.

When it comes to finding the best apple for your crisp, go with a crisp, tart variety that stands up well to baking, like Granny Smith or Honeycrisp. Or, go for it – try mixing the two together if you've got both on hand. Golden Delicious is another great choice for crisp hausarbeit schreiben lassen kosten.

What're the best apples for candied apples? You can candy just about any apple! Granny Smith, Gala, Honeycrisp—they'll all work wonderfully. Granny Smith apples are a bit more tart than the others, so if you like that tart-sweet flavor combination, try using those.

There are a few apples that don't make the cut. While great for snacking, Gala, Fuji and Red Delicious are the most common apples that won't hold up in the oven and will give you a watery-mushy pie, tart or cake.