Apple Chips

I'm a sucker for making things, and I also like to eat. I really try to make mostly healthy things, although it doesn't always work out that way. For example, all week long, my husband has been leaving me hints to bake him a cheesecake (he loves when I make this one), so I finally bought the ingredients yesterday.

Because I'll be indulging in cheesecake this weekend, I've been avoiding all junk food this week. It's not easy. Thankfully, a friend came along and pinned these apple chips:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066324478/

My mother-in-law had given me an apple peeler/corer/slicer because she knows I like to make apple butter in the fall. I actually hadn't used it yet because I thought it would be a big hassle to figure out how to use it and clean it. Yesterday, I decided to dig it out because I had no idea how to go about coring an apple without slicing it lengthwise.

It was a breeze! I stuck my apples onto the end of the pokey, and I let Oliver crank it. It cored and sliced the apples for me (I chose to keep the peel on). OK, so I messed up one apple while trying to figure it out, but then we cored and sliced five apples in less than 5 minutes.

Here's the aftermath:

Clean-up actually wasn't too difficult because I opted to spray it down full-force with my kitchen sprayer, and then I set it out to dry.

I didn't have any parchment paper on hand, so I baked the apple slices directly on the cookie sheets. Some stuck a little, but it wasn't bad. I sprinkled cinnamon on the slices and baked them at 275 for 45 minutes. I flipped them, sprinkled a bit more cinnamon, and rotated the cookie sheets in the oven because the back ones were cooking faster than the front ones. After another 45 minutes, I had to pull them out because some were burning. Most still weren't done and were very chewy. Only a small handful had any crispiness to them. In spite of the texture thing, they were so good. I couldn't eat just one and ended up eating like half of them. Plus, they made the whole house smell great. Here's how they looked:


I'm definitely (definitely) making these again, but I'm going to work at the recipe to try to get them more dehydrated. I think they would have turned out even better in a 200 or 225 degree oven, even if that means they would need to cook a lot longer.

Apple chips. You should make these. I hope you have fun playing with this recipe!