A BIG APPLE 🍎 Edition - No. 152

My LIST of the 12 best ways to savor autumn’s apples, from an easy homemade doughnut, to apple crisp, two salads, apple skillet cake, and more, plus a contest!

Apple Cider Buttermilk Doughnuts. No. 12. Photo: Danielle Atkins.

WE’RE FEELING SO APPLE-Y at Between the Layers. Tuesday’s apple cider fritters were just a tease of what’s happening today with this APPLE LIST, including links, games, and most of all—channeling my best Julio Inglesias—all the apple recipes I’ve loved before…

This list of a dozen apple must-dos includes a few things like the cider doughnuts with the secret ingredient and an easy apple cast-iron skillet cake, but these are at the end for Paid Subscribers. If you’d like those recipes as well, consider upgrading your subscription to paid:

Spread out this list to savor all fall or if you’re feeling competitive, start checking things off as we speak. In fact, let’s add a contest component…

Whoever checks off this list first like Bingo (Let me know! Send me proof!) wins. Then I’ll send you something fall-festive in return and make you semi-famous here in Between the Layers land.

So, get ready, get set, and go:

Bobbing for apples 1920s-style. Have you got your witch’s hat ready? Getty Images.

THE APPLE LIST: 12 ways to savor apples now

1. Bob for them. We’re over Covid, right?! Or, if feeling germaphobic, just dip apples into melted caramel, roll in peanuts, and drizzle with chocolate. Eat all by yourself.

2. Play Apples to Apples. The game. Highly recommended if accompanied by No. 5. It’s all about irony and who’s the judge.

3. Bake Tarte Tatin, above. I wrote about this classic French apple pie last fall. Have you baked it?

4. Or, make an even easier tarte tatin that starts with frozen puff pastry…Wrote about that, too.

No. 4. The cheater version of Tarte Tatin using frozen puff pastry.

5. Sip an appletini. Or just apple cider, pure and simple, un-spiked, from a local apple orchard. Feeling especially festive, warm the cider with cinnamon sticks, some star anise, and cloves and pour into mugs.

6. Bake an Apple. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Core (but don’t peel) a medium apple and cut a hollow in the center about 2 inches wide. Mix a tablespoon soft butter with a tablespoon each finely chopped walnuts and brown sugar, plus a little cinnamon, and spoon into the cavity. Place in a pan, and bake until the apple is tender when pierced with a sharp knife, about 30 to 40 minutes. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Beth’s salad with apples, roasted sweet potatoes, and a maple vinaigrette. No. 8.

7. Cook grains like farro in apple cider and then make a salad. Here’s that fabulous Charlie Bird’s Farro Salad recipe from Ina Garten. There is a New York connection to my Big Apple list after all…

8. Make a glorified Apple Salad. Recreate a childhood Waldorf. Or, if Waldorf with the celery and mayo takes you to a dark place, kiss those bad memories away with my friend Beth’s salad: