New Poll! what do you do with your apples & pears?

[Nikki Arnold]

The GYO team are currently writing some exciting features for the October and November issues including guides on autumn harvests...which got us wondering, what you do with your apples & pears?

Do you turn them into cider, perry, wine & other alcoholic beverages? Create fruit juices and blends? Add them to savoury dishes? Use them to transform sweet treats & bakes?
Dry them? Use them in chutneys, sauces & preserves? Or maybe you have another trick up your sleeve? We'd love to know....

[yummersetter]

You seem to have left out the 'Stand under the tree at sunrise, grab an apple, sink your teeth into it and watch the juice run down your arm' option.

[veggiechicken]

Stew them and freeze into boxes as it packs more easily as a pulp than in slices. Its easy to defrost for crumbles or pies or for my favourite breakfast throughout the winter, eaten with yoghourt, homemade granola and a spoonful of local honey. Yummy!!!

[Capsid]

I'd like to vote for both baking and other (eating fresh).

[Gearoid]

I just eat them raw so voted "other".

[orangepippin]

Share the surplus with others ... www.fruitshare.net ...

[Gareth the Gardener]

I usually turn mine into cider and perry but as it looks like I might have a smaller harvest this year I will be trying to make what I have got go as far as possible!!! I'm looking forward to lashings of homemade apple sauce on my roast pork, tucking into ginger and pear puddings, apple crumbles and pickled pears with cheese, plus making a few chutneys that I can crack open at Christmas. I might even have a go at candied fruit this year, too...I'm excited just thinking about it. Has anyone dried drying pears?

[SarzWix]

I've got 4 apple trees, 2 of them are very heavy croppers, so I do lots of different things with them. The best of them, both cooking and dessert varieties, are wrapped and stored in the garage. Then any badly damaged cookers are cut up and the good bits used to add bulk to chutneys, to make herb jellies, and apple sauce. The dessert ones are sliced and dried. Then all the ones that are left are bagged up and taken to a local micro-brewery who juice and make cider with apples and pears brought in by locals. They keep 10% to sell, and give the rest back ready bottled We used to do it ourselves but we didn't have a proper press, so happy to leave it to the professionals now

[Feral007]

I've never been a fan of cooking so haven't tried jam or chutneys. ATM we just eat what there is, and there is never enough fruit in this house for us.
Next on the list tho is stewing to freeze.
We had devilled sausages this weed with apple and everyone loved it.
I also saw in aldi that the have frozen cubes of fruit to put in smoothies. So this will be a big thing here in future. I have frozen gramma into ice cube trays and then will put into ziplock plastic bags for storage to make the gramma/pumpkin muffins.

I'm trying to get enough apple trees so I have a chance of making some cider out of them. I'll need a lot to get the ferals to actually bring them inside......they favour the juice running up your arm while you stand under the tree eating them option.

[ladylottie]

Most of all I like to eat them raw (even cooking apples), and I make them into jams or chutneys. But best and easiest is to stew the fruit and freeze it in reasonable sized portions. These can be added to pies and crumbles at a later date or just eaten warmed with creme fraiche or yoghurt with sultanas sprinkled on the top.

[CaroltheCarrot]

I have resisted for ages.
Climb themShoot me, am bored

[Llamas]

My too-late apple thinning got pressed for verjuice! Move over Maggie Beer!

[northepaul]

Our apple trees are mainly too small to crop yet, but I have one eating apple (a spartan that was already on the plot, which is, um eaten?! ) and get given lots of cooking apples (as swaps for other produce) I make Bramley apple curd, and use them in pies, cakes, preserves, etc

They are the best fruit in the world!

Oh and we have 2 cider apples for the future!

[BUFFS]

i love mine in apple danishes,but seem to eat them faster than i cook them,or an apple and rhubarb crumble,thats it ,its making me hungry thinking about it,must be teatime now,surely..

[Matt94]

what you do with your apples & pears?

Walk up them of course! (sorry no one else said it, so i had to!)