Drying Apples + Some

Good morning Everyone! A couple of days ago I worked on drying apples. Drying them is very similar to drying pears. Turn on your oven to about 150 degrees. Then do the following:

Peel the apples and cut out the cores

Slice into 1/4 inch slices, throw cut pieces into 1 quart of water with 1 & 1/2 tablespoon of lemon juice to keep from browning

Drain apples to get as much water as possible out

Place on baking sheet and make sure no apples are touching

Dry to a leathery or crisp texture and cool for 20 minutes

Condition the apples the same as pears, by filling a glass 2/3 full with the dried apples, shake the jar a couple of times a day for a week. If there’s condensation put back in the oven for 1-2 hours. Then seal in an airtight container.

So that is pretty straight forward right? I also tried drying apples infused with Concord Grape Juice. Why? Well my sister declares she hates tea, so some of my experiments are in attempts to change that. She likes apples and grapes. In my mind, I have no clue how to get a grape flavor into a tea. When you dry grapes, they turn into raisins and that really does not sound good to have in a tea. So I’ve attempted infusing apples with grape juice. Here’s how:

I cut 1 gala apple into 1/4 inch slices and put them in a jar with grape juice. I sat this jar in the refrigerator for 2 days.

After two days it looked like this:

Afterwards, I dried the grape juiced infused apples similar to above.

This dried down to a more leathery consistency, rather than crisp. Tasting it on it’s own, I could taste the grape coming through. But I’m afraid it won’t be strong enough for a tea. We shall see!