Regardless of my fuzzy focus earlier in the week it has been SUCH a bitty few days with various commitments that even with a specific task to get on with it would have been hard to piece together enough time to do it. This has had the benefit, however, of getting some shorter but not pressing tasks done, inbetween comings and goings.
A small pile of eating apples has been looking accusingly at me for a little while, saying “If you are not going to EAT me then PLEASE do something else with me, before I go soft in the head”. Admittedly the pile does look larger (but not VERY large) and healthier than it has done for many seasons, but the apples are still very variable – you could pick out a larger or a smaller apple at random from the pile and it may or may not be acceptably sweet enough to enjoy, but you can’t take a bite out of them all to check! The apples were here before us, so I can’t say what variety they are although I vaguely remember we may have been told they were Coxes. I had contemplated juicing them, but then it’s a matter of drinking the juice fresh or storing it somehow, so I returned to the drying option which I had used a couple of years ago, when I dried some of our cooking apples in the warming oven of the Aga.
It was a useful experiment then and successful in part, needing trial and error for the timing and a better means of supporting the apples as they dried, but knowing a friend had just bought an electric dehydrator I jumped at the chance to borrow it and see how effective it was. It didn’t take long to core and slice the apples and fill the plastic trays, where the slices are now drying off for the suggested 5-6 hours. As they do so, I am already thinking of how to rig up a stack of metal cooling racks in the Aga – but perhaps I will try with a single one first as the cooking apples may be too soft to keep their shape comfortably on the metal….
Rambling in the Garden 
You’ve reminded me that I really ought to do something with all my windfalls, must go and sort them out tomorrow! I’m impressed that you’re thinking of drying yours, have never thought of that.
After heavy pruning (of the cookers) 2 years ago we had an easily manageable crop last year, but there’s plenty up there this year so drying some of them saves freezer space and also cuts down preparation time as they are quickly cored and sliced as I like to keep the peel on. Give it a try if you have an Aga or an oven that can give temps of 50-70 degrees C – or can borrow a dehydrator
We also dry apple slices – great in winter and they keep the vitamin c, I suppose. But I also like strudel, so yummie! Have you ever heard of it? German speciality, my granny gave me the receipe 🙂
How do you dry yours, Annette? Apple strudel is one of the few German/Austrian foods that most UK people HAVE heard of, like Black Forest gateau (which probably has no connection at all with the Black Forest!) 😉
Just checked and its origins seem indeed unknown. We put the slices on a string and hang it in the room or we put them onto trays and place them above the stove (a certain distance has to be kept). Don’t have a professional dryer, do you?
Just borrowing am ‘amateur’ dehydrator for the w/e. How long do yours take to dry the way you do them?
couple of days, how does an amateur dehydrator look like??? have a nice weekend 🙂
I could tick you off for not reading my posts properly – there was a picture of the dehydrator on Thursday’s post! I described as ‘amateur is it is a much cheaper model than the professional ones. Have a good w/e too
You don’t have to tick me off… couldn’t see anything ‘amateur’ in your Thursday post that’s why I wondered. Here you can get only one type of dryer – amateur or not. 😉