Clean Eating Pumpkin Spice Baked Apple Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What are the best apples for baking and eating? ›

For the best pies, crisps, and other baked treats, apples need to be firm enough to hold their own during the cooking process. We call these apples “baking apples” and to namedrop, they include Braeburn, Cortland, Honey Gold, Jonathan, Fuji, Gala, Granny Smith, Haralson, and Newtown Pippin.

Apple pie spice is made of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and occasionally cardamom. Pumpkin spice includes a combination of those ingredients except for cardamom, but the key difference between the two is that pumpkin spice contains cloves.

Pumpkin pie spice, also known as pumpkin spice, is an American spice mix commonly used as a flavoring for pumpkin pie, but does not include pumpkin as an ingredient. Pumpkin pie spice is similar to the British and Commonwealth mixed spice.

There are a few apples that don't make the cut. While great for snacking, Gala, Fuji and Red Delicious are the most common apples that won't hold up in the oven and will give you a watery-mushy pie, tart or cake.

Baking apples are typically varieties that hold their shape well when cooked and have a firm texture, such as Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, or Braeburn. Eating apples, on the other hand, are varieties that are meant to be eaten raw and have a softer texture, such as Red Delicious or Fuji.

The best way to keep apples' nutrition intact is to eat them raw since cooking can result in the loss of certain nutrients. Having said that, cooked apples are still a very wholesome food that can contribute to maintaining good overall health.

Can you use pumpkin pie spice instead of apple pie spice? Yes! You can easily swap one of these spice blends for another. Just keep in mind that pumpkin pie spice contains some spices that aren't always found in apple pie spice, like cloves and ginger, so the end result won't be exactly the same.

To get 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice, use ¾ teaspoon cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon ginger, allspice, cloves or nutmeg, whatever you have! If you have two of the above spices, use ½ teaspoon cinnamon and ¼ teaspoon of whichever two spices you do have.

However, if you're in a bind, you can always simply use cinnamon in place of the spice blend. You won't get quite the same complexity of flavor as you would from pumpkin pie spice, but it's close enough to work in a pinch. You can also use another fall baking hero—apple pie spice!

What spice is close to pumpkin spice? ›

For 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice, substitute: ¾ teaspoon cinnamon + ¼ teaspoon ginger, allspice, cloves, or nutmeg (whatever you have!) ½ teaspoon cinnamon + ¼ teaspoon each of any of the two above.

McCormick Culinary Pumpkin Pie Spice is a premium blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and allspice delivering a warm brown-spice flavor. Delicious in pumpkin pie and so much more. Use in sweet potatoes, apple dishes, streusel toppings, candied nuts.

If you want it to taste better, the Red Delicious needs to be left on the tree so long that a condition called watercore develops. “What that means is the starches and sugars get converted to sorbitol, or unfermentable sugar,” he says. “They're very sweet, but they don't last long.

Red Delicious and Gala are two apples that won't withstand cooking temperatures and should not be used for apple pie. Many new apple varieties, including Honeycrisp, have a flesh that fractures when you bite it. This is so appealing for snacking on an apple, but not the best feature for a good apple pie apple.

Honeycrisp. If there was ever a perfect apple for snacking, this might be it. It's fragrant, sweet and tart. Plus, its shatteringly crisp texture works well when used as a topping on open-faced sandwiches.

Granny Smith.

Firm and very tart, this variety is the go-to for many when it comes to pie because it keeps its shape extremely well. But it isn't exactly known for its flavor, so Granny Smiths are best used in conjunction with sweeter and/or more flavorful apples.