Apple Chips

Autumn. It's cool and crisp outside, and people everywhere are drinking pumpkin spice mochas. In other places of the country, trees are presumably changing their colors and shedding their leaves.

I, of course, have nothing to say about that. Not so much because I am unwilling but because I am unable. There are no leaves to speak of here, so even if they were to change colors, nobody would know. Darn non-existent leaves.

Regardless, the lack of autumn has done nothing to abate my autumnal appetites. (Alliteration. I haz it.) 

Hence, I gleefully present to you: apple chips.

iphones caneras r so kewl. 

These, my dears, are crunchy little crisps of sweet goodness. 

These are also amazingly simple. Grab a mandolin (or a super sharp knife), slice up some apples, soak in some simple syrup (boiled sugar water) and you're golden (no, wait; the chips are! Haha!! I made a funny!). Then you stick 'em in the oven and forget about them for upwards of an hour. 

My lovely apples a-soakin in some simple syrup (boiled sugar water).

All soaked and ready to go in the oven. 

Helpful Hints:

A word of caution: cut your apples into pieces of similar thickness. Otherwise, you'll end up like me with a few slightly under cooked chips. They taste good; they're just a bit chewy, and hence not really chips. And chips are what we're going for here. Sweet, crunchy, healthy (!!) chips. If you, unlike me, have a mandolin for this little adventure, you should use it! Otherwise, a sharp knife can do the trick. 

Also, using parchment paper to line your baking sheet will work much better than using foil. I know this from experience. Do as I say and not as I do, and you'll be saved the pain of meticulously peeling the chips off your sheet. 

As for cooking time, the recipe below calls for an hour. My temperamental oven took about three hours and I ended up adjusting the heat to about 250. Check your chips after an hour, adjust as necessary, and pray your oven is nothing like mine. 

I used an assortment of Golden Delicious and Gala apples for this project, and while both were scrumptious, I personally liked the Golden Delicious apple chips better. But that's only because they were sweeter and you know I'll always root for the sweeter option. Can't help it: I have a sweet tooth the size of Cleveland.

Use the lemons below if you feel like it. I didn't and they turned out just fine. 

Variation: sprinkle with cinnamon.

Recipe: Apple Chips