Dried apples substitutes

Dried pear halves or slices, pale, chewy and mild, made by the same process as dried apples.

Best for

fried pies, stack cake filling, muesli, granola, stuffing, compote, pork dishes

The nearest thing on a shelf. Pears dry to the same soft-leathery texture, rehydrate at the same rate, and cook down into the same kind of thick spoonable filling, so a fried pie made with them looks and behaves exactly right. The flavour is a shade rounder, softer and more honeyed and it loses the tart apple edge, which shows up most in a filling that is spiced with cinnamon and cloves. A teaspoon of lemon juice or a splash of apple cider per cup of fruit brings back the missing sharpness.

Fresh apples cored, sliced thin and dried slowly in a low oven or dehydrator until pliable and leathery.

Best for

fried apple pies, stack cake, schnitz, muesli, snacking, apple hand pies

For traditional recipes that are built around dried apples, this is genuinely the right answer and it is not difficult. Core the apples, slice them about 5mm or a quarter inch thick, dip them in water with a squeeze of lemon so they do not brown, and dry them on lined trays at the lowest oven setting, around 60 to 70C or 140 to 160F, with the door propped open a crack. They take six to ten hours and are done when a slice bends without snapping and shows no wet centre. Tart, firm apples such as Granny Smith or a good cooking apple dry best. Cool completely before storing.

Fresh tart apples, peeled, chopped small and simmered until the mixture is stiff rather than saucy.

Best for

fried pies, hand pies, turnovers, stack cake, apple cake filling

Practical and often better tasting, but you have to respect what drying was for. Dried apples are simmered with water to make a dense filling that will not leak out of a pastry seam; fresh apples arrive with all their own water, so cook them covered until soft, then uncovered, stirring, until a spoon dragged across the pan leaves a channel that stays open. Expect twenty to thirty minutes and expect the flavour to be brighter and fresher but less deep and caramelly than a dried-apple filling. Cool it completely before filling pastry, because warm filling makes the dough slack and it will blow out in the fryer.

Plain unsweetened applesauce, cooked down to thicken and spiced to taste.

Best for

stack cake filling, muffins, quick breads, apple butter, spice cake

The fastest fix, and it works if you fix the water. Straight from the jar it is far too loose for pastry and will run out of a pie, so simmer it in a wide pan for ten to fifteen minutes until it mounds on a spoon. It is also smooth, so you lose the little chewy pieces of fruit that give a stack cake or fried pie its character, and it tastes noticeably milder. Sharpen it with a tablespoon of lemon juice, and season it hard with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and brown sugar, because dried apples carry far more concentrated flavour than sauce does.

Dried peach halves or dried apricots, chopped to roughly apple-slice size.

Best for

muesli, granola, stuffing, compote, hand pies, couscous

A good working swap wherever the fruit is a component rather than the whole point. Both rehydrate well and both hold up to simmering, so a compote or a stuffing behaves the same. Dried peaches are the gentler of the two and taste closest to apple; apricots are distinctly tarter and stronger, and they turn a filling orange, so a fried pie made with them is clearly an apricot pie. Sweetness runs a little higher with peaches, so cut a tablespoon of sugar per cup of fruit if the recipe is already sweet.

Thin apple slices dried until brittle and crunchy, often sold as a snack food and sometimes sugar-coated.

Best for

muesli, cereal toppings, garnish, crumble toppings

Worth knowing the difference, because the packet often just says dried apples. Chewy dried apple rings rehydrate into fruit; crisp apple chips are much drier and thinner, so they either dissolve to mush or stay papery, and cinnamon-sugar coated ones will make a filling cloying. They are fine crumbled over granola or yogurt where the crunch is a feature. For a cooked filling, soak them in hot water fifteen minutes, taste for sweetness, and expect a softer, less substantial result than proper dried slices give.