Tuesday, October 30, 2012

I Made Apple Chips!!!

Originally, my plan was to leave my apple dehydration post as a single entry.  You know, just the basics.


  • I'm dehydrating apples.
  • This is how you do it.
  • Yay, me! (insert pat on the back here.)
Simple, to the point, and informative.

Except that I always end up doing something different than I had planned, and thereby, manage to have something new to talk about.

What changed this time?  

Well, as you know, I left the apples in the dehydrator and walked away, planning to come back in twenty four hours.

dehydrator filled to the max with apple slices.


But then life happened.

I went to the store.  While there, I spotted some apple chips.  Apple chips are one of those foods that make me feel that everything is ok in the world.  That is, until I get to the end of the bag.

And that doesn't take very long.

See, the bags are always puffed up with air.  What seems like a full bag of chips, filled to the brim with crunchy happiness

Holding a gigantic, puffy bag, hearts over my head. Bag says "Best Apple Chips Ever!!!"


turns into a huge, puffy bag of disappointment.


Huge, opened bag of apple chips on a table.  9 tiny chips in view.  Question marks over my head as I stare.


Just as I closed my eyes to drift off into dreamland that night, I realized what the answer to this problem would be.

Leave the apple slices in the dehydrator for a day longer!!!

(insert celebratory fireworks here)

Every recipe for apple chips that I had ever seen called for baking them on low... but wouldn't the dehydrator do the same?  It has heating coils at the bottom, after all, and the more something dries out, the more it gets crunchy.  Leaves are a good example.  I just needed to suck all the moisture out of those little things!

So I waited an extra day.  If I failed, well... I had a ton of apples from my grandma's tree.  I could afford to lose a few.  

The next morning, I opened my dehydrator to see the result.  And guess what?

Large pile of crispy, crunchy apple chips

Awesome, crunchy apple chips!  It was a success!  Off of seven apples, ranging from small (think crabapple size) to medium, I ended up with at least triple the amount of chips that I would get in a store-bought bag.

And...

They tasted great!  Even better, I knew exactly what was used, since I did everything myself.  No worries about GMOs, no worries about cellulose, no worries at all!

I was in heaven.

This is yet another great reason to own a cheap dehydrator.  Now go make some apple chips that'll send you into seventh heaven!  You won't regret it.



(As an aside... does anyone know where the "seventh heaven" phrase comes from?  Perhaps it draws from Dante Alighieri's Paradiso? I've never read that one....)

No comments:

Post a Comment