Cooking apple

A cooking apple is an apple that is used primarily for cooking rather than eating raw. Cooking apples are larger, and can be tarter than eating varieties. Some varieties have a firm flesh that does not break down much when cooked. Culinary varieties with a high acid content become a froth when cooked, which is desirable for some recipes. The British grow a large range of apples specifically for cooking, but such varieties are used worldwide, although apples eaten raw are also used for cooking purposes. Many apples are dual-purpose.

Apples can be cooked down into sauce, apple butter or fruit preserves, baked in an oven and served with custard, and made into pies or apple crumble. In the UK roast pork is commonly served with cold apple sauce made from boiled and mashed apples. Bramley apple is by far the most popular cooking apple in the United Kingdom, while Granny Smith may be the most popular in the United States and Australia (where it originated).

A baked apple is one that has been baked in an oven until it has become soft. The core is usually removed and often stuffed with other fruits, brown sugar, raisins, or cinnamon.

John Claudius Loudon wrote in 1842

Properties of a good apple — Apples for table are characterised by a firm pulp, elevated, poignant flavour, regular form, and beautiful colouring; those for kitchen use by the property of falling as it is technically termed, or forming in general a pulpy mass of equal consistency when baked or boiled, and by a large size. Some sorts of apples have the property of falling when green, as the Keswick, Carlisle, Hawthornden, and other codlins; and some only after being ripe, as the russet tribes. Those which have this property when green are particularly valuable for affording sauces to geese early in the season, and for succeeding the gooseberry in tarts.