Apples are one of the nutrient-rich foods containing a lot of vitamins and proteins, which is also the reason I advise you to eat them frequently.
Apples also contain fiber, antioxidants and vitamin C that takes a huge role in enhancing the immune system, increasing the resistance as well as anti-aging and protecting cardiovascular health.
In addition, apples have other health benefits that you may not know, such as preventing Alzheimer’s disease and cancer, lowering the risk of diabetes, lowering bad cholesterol, and improving the immune system.
With such great health benefits, apples are “worthy” to be considered to supplement in your daily lives.
Here are some of the most interesting recipes of apple that you should know and try:
For Babies/Toddlers
The best way to keep the apples’ flavor and nutrition is baking them (like apple pie). Or you can steam them to retain all nutrients with as less volatile as possible.
For those who prefer to boil apples, pay attention to the right amount of water. Besides, unlike other fruits, while grinding or processing, you don’t need to add water into the mixture because apples themselves contain a lot of water, they tend to drain if they are grinded.
For those babies who start eating weaning meals (about 4-6 months), you should steam apples to help them get acquainted to eating. However, with older babies, you can feed them with fresh apples (without steaming).
Food can be mixed with apples, such as baby weaning powder; banana, pear, sweet potato, carrot, chicken, beef and yogurt.
According to many nutrition experts, though they are side meals for babies, they should have enough nutrients. However, it’s not synonymous to those dishes with too sophisticated and complex cooking process. You can use the baby food in the refrigerator or rice and bread to make a baby meal. Just add some spices needed without spending too much time.
In addition, these foods can be processed from the night before and refrigerate until the next day. Before serving, remember to preheat the food in the microwave.
Now, I’m going to introduce to you some must-try recipes for your babies:
Sweet Potatoes + Apples
Ingredients
- Sweet potato: 1 unit (200g)
- Apples: 1/4 unit (50g)
- Raisins: 15g
- Avocado: 5g
- Lemon juice: 10ml
- Sugar: 15g
- A little salt and water
How-to
Rinse the sweet potato (whole shell) and slice apples into itty-bitty pieces. Next, wash the raisins.
Add all the ingredients in a small pot (But with avocado, only use 1/2), mix to combine and cover with a lid, simmer until the sweet potato becomes softer. Finally, add the rest amount of avocado into the pot, stir to combine.
Aside from this formula, you can process the sweet potato with orange juice or pineapple based on your baby’s desire.
Apples + bananas
Steam the apples. Then, mash them together with ripe bananas (the right amount for baby’s diet). Next, add some water, yogurt or cheese, if needed.
If you intend to try this, just remember to try the green apples only because sweetness in bananas will reduce the acidity in green apples.
Apples + weaning powder
Steam or boil apples to soften. Next, grind them and then mix with weaning powder to soup up their flavor.
Apples + Weaning powder + Formula Milk
Firstly, steam and grind the apples. Meanwhile, prepare the formula milk (about 50-100ml is okay). Next, mix them together and then, add the weaning powder, stir to combine and ready to serve.
Apple Mixture
Chop the apples into itty-bitty pieces. Then, boil them in a pot of water (the water in the pot is slightly higher than the height of apples) until the apples become soft (remember to check the water level in the pot).
Finally, you can add a tablespoon of Apple cider vinegar to soup up the dish and ready to serve.
Apple + pear + yogurt
Mash down the steamed apples and pears together (you can add some water, if necessary). Finally, mix with yogurt (the one specialized for baby) and then feed your baby.
Apples + chicken (for baby 8-10 months)
Mash the boiled apples.
Mash down the cooked chicken.
Then, mix these two mixtures together and let your baby enjoy it.
Apple + mango (for children over 8 months old)
Again, boil the apples. With mango, peel and cut them into itty-bitty pieces. Use either a food processor or a grinder to grind them into a fine mixture.
Mango is a tropical fruit that is not suitable for children under 6 months, but for children over 8 months old, it is ideal.
You should take note that mangoes cause allergies to children, the most common symptom of which is some red dots appearing around your children’s mouth. However, don’t fret, they will disappear quickly.
Apples + carrots (4 small carrots and 1 apple)
First, boil all carrots in a pot of water until they get boiling, low down the heat to small-medium and keep boiling for 2 more minutes.
Then, add the apples into the pot, boil for 8 more minutes until both of these fruits is getting softer.
– Turn off the heat, remove carrots and apples, let them aside to cool down and add to the food processor to grind them finely.
– Add breastmilk or formula milk powder to suit your desire of the mixture texture.
For adults
Apple Smoothies
Ingredients
– 1 apple.
– ½ fresh lemon
– 1 small ginger.
– 50 grams of white sugar
– Small ice cubes.
Tool
– Blender.
– A Food Strainer.
How-to
First up is the apple, you should opt for the round ones with smooth skin, no spotted or scratches or marks so that they will deliver the best taste and fragrance.
Now, wash the apples, peel, remove the seeds and cut them into thin slices.
With ginger, wash and remove the skin.
About lemon juice, squeeze them to get about 1 tsp of juice, remember to remove all seeds.
Add the mixture of apples, limes, ginger, sugar and ice (you can add some water to add more volume to the mixture) in the blender. Grind the mixture thoroughly.
Then filter it through a sieve, carefully strain it to get the best juice.
Pour it into a glass and you can add some more ice cubes to enjoy immediately or store it cool in the refrigerator to enjoy it more flavorfully.
Apple juice + ginger + fresh lemon helps purify the body, boost beauty skin and prevent throat inflammation. Also, it’s a perfect summer drink to help you cool down effectively.
Rose Apple Cake
Ingredients
- 1 pack of all-purpose flour
- 2 red apples
- 1 tablespoon of strawberry jam
- Yellow sugar
- Cinnamon powder
- 1 fresh lemon
How-to
Slice the apples and soak them in lemon juice. Meanwhile, prepare the other materials.
After that, put the apple slices in an oven, heat them up a little bit. Meanwhile, with strawberry jam, pour some water into it, stir to combine.
Speaking of all-purpose powder, divide it into 3 sections, each of which is about 8-cm high.
Now, paste a thin layer of strawberry jam onto the all-purpose powder, then put apples slices onto the powder’s edge, sprinkle with some sugar and cinnamon powder
Fold the other edge of the powder trip up.
Roll apple pie and shape it a little bit to look like a rose. Then, put them into an oven, bake in 180 degrees Celsius below in 30 minutes and ready to serve.
Tarte aux pommes
Ingredients
- 1 kg of golden apple excluding the shell
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 2 tablespoons of honey
- 1 lemon juice
- 30 gr of butter
- A little cinnamon powder
- 1 roll of pâte brisé or all-purpose flour
- The top: 120 ml of apple juice cooked with 1 teaspoon of vegetable powder
- 1 tablespoon of honey
- 1 tablespoon of flour or cornstarch
How-to
Preparation: Peel 500 grams of apples and cut into itty-bitty pieces. Next, add apple pieces, sugar, cinnamon, honey and butter into a pot, pour roughly 100 ml of water into it. Finally, add the lemon juice and cover with a lid and boil the mixture for about 5 minutes then.
After that, transfer the mixture into a pan, drain the liquid. Put the rest into a food processor, grind to get a fine-texture mixture. Wait it to cool down entirely. Add 1 tablespoon of wheat flour, or cornstarch.
Layer the mold with paper, pour the powder into it, paste and embed to stick around the mound. Speaking of the remaining apples, peel them off and slice thinly.
When the apple powder cools down, layer fully with apple slices
With the apple liquid that you have drained later, add some gélatine, stir to combine.
Brush the apple juice on the surface of the cake.
Heat the oven to 200 degrees, add the cake into it, bake for about 35 to 40 minutes. Meanwhile, boil the rest amount of apple juice. Once the cake is cooked already, take it out, brush a few more layers of apple juice onto its surface, wait to cool down.
Remember to add a little of cinnamon powder to fragrance the cake. However, don’t add too much.
Yogurt Apple Cake
Ingredient
- 1 cup of sugar-free yogurt (nearly 300gr)
- 3 cups of flour
- 1/3 tsp of cooking oil
- 2 / 3-1 sugar capsules
- 3 eggs
- 15 g of baking powder
- Vanilla
- 2-3 apples
- 1-2 tablespoons of cinnamon powder
How-to
Beat egg, yogurt, cooking oil and sugar with salt.
Mix wheat flour, baking powder and cinnamon powder, sieved 2 times then mix with egg mixture.
With apples, use one to peel and chop into itty-bitty pieces, one to slice for decoration.
Add the chopped apples into the powder mixture, whisk to combine and pour to oiled molds, then top with sliced apples.
Turn on the oven 10 minutes in 180 degrees before baking the cake in 40 minutes.
Cinnamon Cake
Ingredients
- 150 g of soft room temperature butter
- 100 g of sugar
- 2 chicken eggs
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract
- 150 g of all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp of baking powder
- 1 tsp of cinnamon powder
- 1 small pinch of salt
- 100 g of sugarless yogurt
- 1-2 green squash
- A little bit of jam apricot to sweep the cake
How-to
Cut apples into halves, use the corer to remove their cores then slice thinly. Turn the oven to 200oC.
Use an egg beat butter machine + sugar at high speed until smooth and light color
Add eggs one by one to mix with the butter and sugar mixture in high speed, then add vanilla.
Mix flour, baking powder, cinnamon powder and salt
Mix the flour mixture with the butter and egg mixture and add the yogurt
Oil the mold, then pour the mixture into it.
Put apples on the cake (you can sprinkle with some cinnamon powder)
Bake at 200oC for 10 minutes, then lower to 180oC, continue to bake for 30 minutes more or until it turns into a golden-brown color. To know whether the cake is already cooked or not, you can use a toothpick, toss it into the cake, if the toothpick isn’t wet after removing off the cake, adjust the heat down to 120oC and bake in the last 5 minutes to yellow the cake’s surface.
Take it out, spread with a little jam to make them look more delicious.
No matter which recipes you are going to try, remember to wash the apples throughout before processing. Might some kinds of apples be covered with pesticide or chemical substances, it’s better to be safe than sorry so, you should soak them into a liquid combining water and vinegar to salt in 3-5 minutes before washing them again with clean cool water. I hope that these recipes are helpful for you to vary the daily menu of your family and your baby.
If there’s something not on this website that you need my help, kindly leave it on the comment section below. Thanks for reading!
