All things Gale: Apple Mush (or Applesauce) Bars

We made fresh apple cider last week for the first time and I am sold! It's delicious and...uh...helps with Leo's potty-training...a lot :)

ANYway - I had some extra apples that were screaming for my help before the fruit flies devoured them...

Seriously Ma?? That's disgusting...

...and decided to make one more fresh batch of apple juice with them. Besides, they were taking up valuable space on my countertop and I need that space for piling more dirty dishes.

After my post on making homemade apple cider and my failed attempt at apple fruit leather, a close friend of mine emailed me the following:

Say, I read your blog post about the seconds (apples). I juice my own apple juice, too and we just have a lot of apples from our tree this year and I needed juice for our kombucha & kefir soda. Not sure if you knew this, but I had been allergic to apple skins for many years (30 or so) after an overexposure to pesticides via nasty algae in the local lake. I was allergic to other fruit skins, as well, but apples bothered me the most. Well, now when the EWG came out with the new list of dirty dozens this year, I was not surprised at all that apples are now the dirtiest of the dirty dozen as far as pesticides go. Thankfully, our local orchards (we only have one certified organic) are now practicing IPM (integrative pest management? - I think that's it), which has reduced the number of pesticides significantly that they are applying to the apples. But regardless, if I was to buy their apples, I would peel them before using.

Interesting, no? We'll never know the exact origin of allergies but she experienced this as a direct result of swimming in a lake!!! It is a reminder of the risks and dangers of ingesting pesticides, so it stands to reason that we don't want that crap anywhere NEAR our children!!

So, I took the extra time this morning to wash and peel all the apples before juicing. I wanted to take the leftover apple mush and make something with it. Since it wouldn't have any of the peel, it was going to be smooth like applesauce so I looked up a delicious recipe.

So after juicing the leftover apples, I got a huge jar of cider and 4 cups of apple mush!

Elena and I got busy making the Applesauce Bars. Well, she just licked stuff while I measured and stirred...

Since I hadn't made this recipe before, I added my 2 secret ingredients to make sure it came out delicious!

#1: Pure Vanilla Extract

#2: Chocolate Chips

And it came out AMAZING!!! It's more like a cake since I doubled my recipe, but none of us are complaining. And I'm sure you could happily omit the vanilla and chocolate chips and it would be a delicious spice bar. I have 2 more cups of apple mush so I'll do that on the next batch. I adapted the recipe from here.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter softened

1/2 cup coconut sap sugar

1/2 cup raw honey

2 eggs

2 cups applesauce or apple mush

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups whole wheat flour (I used spelt) or unbleached all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter a 9x13 inch baking pan.

In a medium bowl, mix together the butter, coconut sugar, honey and egg until smooth. Stir in apple mush and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt and spices; stir into the apple mush mixture until well blended. Add the chocolate chips. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake for 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are golden. Cool in the pan over a wire rack.