Which are the best baking apples?

A timely question given the season, and an important one. Pick the right apple for an apple upside-down cake and you get a firm flavorful apples inside a sweet, moist (yet still firm) cake. Pick the wrong one and you get applesauce in a sodden mess.

In general you’re looking for a firm apple that is also sweet. My go-to, because they’re so easy to find in the US, is the Golden delicious. Lately Gala apples have become popular for baking, though I have a hard time understanding why since they lose an awful lot of flavor in the oven. Other decent choices are Jonathans and Jonagolds, Winesaps and Newton Pippins. Best of all, if you can find them, are Red Romes, also known as Rome Beauties, probably the preeminent baking apple.

Avoid at all costs Red Delicious and McIntosh or anything labeled a “cooking apple” since these types break down to mush with heat. The Granny Smith, though it’s the first apple that pops into most peoples’ minds when you talk about firm apples, is actually a rather so-so choice, for reasons I mentioned below.

6 thoughts on “Which are the best baking apples?”

  1. Red Delicious should be renamed, SUCH a misnomer!

    I guess I have lost my sweet tolerance, as I cannot abide sweet baking apples (golden delicious and royal gala are pretty much unpalatably sweet to my taste), they need to be tart for me. I guess I’ll have to stick to apple sauce, and other mushier apple applications!

    1. Hey Katherine!

      I prefer tarter apples to eat also. In a cake or pastry I can abide sweet, mostly because the sweetness gets lost amid the other ingredients. But to each their own!

      Thanks for the comment!

      – Joe

  2. I recently used Envy apples (a Braeburn/Royal Gala hybrid) in an upside-down apple cake and they were perfect: completely held their shape, nice texture, and a sweet apple taste.

    1. Never heard of those Mark but I’ll look for them. I’m noticing so many new varietals lately it’s hard to keep up!

      Thanks,

      – Joe

  3. The cooking school I attended always stocked the pantry with Braeburns and Fujis. Good all-around apples, for both cooking and eating out-of-hand. I’m really liking honeycrisps right now.

    1. Hey Holly!

      Yes honeycrisps are a great eating apple. They live up to their name for sure, sweet and crispy though not terribly much apple flavor on the downside. But my girls adore them in their lunches.

      Thanks!

      – Joe

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