Heavy whipping cream . i brush it on thick it also makes the crust flaky
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I have empire apples out in my garage its about 40 i 45 f all winter long and im still eating from them i think they store better then gravenstein IMO
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To continue the conversation:
My father’s memory of the apples on the Wolf River tree that grew in his family’s orchard, was that it was flavorless when eaten fresh, and it shriveled down to nothing when cooked. As a result, I did not plant a Wolf River in our orchard. But friends did in theirs, and they have shared some over the years. The size and color makes it impressive. My father granted it that. I discovered my father was right, however, with his negativity. Not much flavor. Mediocre for sauce. I never tried it in a pie. I can also add that it isn’t a good apple for cidermaking. Because of its size, it clogs up the grinder, and it is not juicy.
Over the years on this forum, Wolf River has received mixed reviews. I glad for you if you are a fan, but I don’t recommend it.
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so one of the trees i have is a Black apple. its so dark red or burgundy it looks black lasts the Longest in the pantry most people call a garage lol . anyway i think its an arkansaw apple my family is from the mid west and my great great great grandfather invented the Norton grape for missouri . my grandpa dalton taught me how to make moonshine when i was 7 so i think they are both Awesome. anyway i just made a few mini pies using the black apple and they are great tasting in the pies but don’t hold their shape as well as others . again this is the apple that has me stumped i wish i could send in leaves or wood cuttings to a university like i did with my pawpaw and have the speicies identified
I do not think any one particular apple is better then others for pies per say. I think what is available locally rules choices.
Here the lowly Horse variety rules the roost. Never a boring taste with horse in the pie
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that looks like it … off the tree fresh its amazing . but i am truly a gravenstein girl … but i like other apples for everything i like the gravenstein for i do not like granny smiths to me they .but a friend brought me a yellow apple i liked started with a A and a new variety was crisp and made great applesauce and Cider. i didnt try it in pies i already had too many made and i only had room for my pineapple cherry pie left .
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I think Gravensteins do better out west in California, Oregon, and Washington. I had a friend that tried growing them in my area and they were not good at all. He had the tree fruiting for about 6 years and finally took it out. It seems people out west love their Gravenstein apples very much.
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Now i really want to try haralson. I’ve never had it.
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There are so many apple varieties I want to try, at least get to taste them to see if it is something I want to add to my orchard. Not enough time or money ( traveling costs and staying at hotels) to go around and taste all the ones available, unfortunately.
ive got wood…
I’ve got critters. 
The squirrels literally remove every apple from my one mature tree most years before they ripen.
But hey, hope springs eternal.
feed the squils something else and they might ignore the apples, my mom has squils in her yard every day and they never touch her apples, but she feeds birds so they are always picking bird seed off the ground.
Mine are 3”-4” and rather elongated. I wonder if that tree is mislabeled!
Elongated sounds right, so perhaps they’re indeed HGG, despite being rather small. The size may be due to local conditions - water, nutrition, climate, etc. Post a photo this season to give us a look at them.
I don’t actually have any photos of it, and am not OP. But I know the elongated shape is right for a Hudson’s Golden Gem. I had one of the earlier trees and cut it down before I realized (trunk was rotting out, even though it still produced a few apples. Tried to find the grower (Tangent is not far from me) and ended up buying from Ram Fishman.
Ram was the source of my HGG as well, as a bench graft.
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Yeah, so Hudson’s was a nursery in Talent, and whoever lived here before the guy I bought this place from apparently bought a lot of their trees from there. I still have a couple huge walnuts, one very old Bartlett, and a gazillion Italian plums, mostly suckers or volunteers from the seeds of the 3 original trees. Or should I say 4 because 1 was actually 2 twined around each other, I am now guessing purposefully, like a marriage tree. I am ashamed to say I did not take scions from any of the old apples and crabs before cutting them down. It didn’t even occur to me until after they were gone. Here’s a picture of an unripe young damaged apple that I happened to have on my phone, showing the characteristic shape, in case OP wants to see.
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What about pairing tart Winekist with Sweet Sixteen for pie?
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