Last month was Chad's birthday and we decided to take a day trip to Oak Glen, an apple orchard community near Yucaipa that lies right at the foot of the San Bernardino mountains. The area is known for its yearlong chill in the air, which is perfect for harvesting apples, and I hoped Chad would find it fondly reminiscent of the orchards found throughout upstate New York where he grew up.
Even though we visited at the end of the apple season, there was still an ample amount of apples to be enjoyed! We decided against picking from the orchards, and chose instead to press our own apple cider.
In order to press some tasty cider, it's best to start with a variety of apples so this collection here was perfect. It was a nice, chilly day and grabbin hoards of apples from this water-filled bucket was not easy.
Since Chad was already pretty familiar with cider presses from when he was younger, I got to take the reins and do the dirty work. A fun task no doubt, but not made any easier with an audience!
I felt pretty clumsy as I fetched apples from my bucket and quickly tossed them into the grinder, only to jump on over to the side to turn the handcrank that chopped them all up. It took me a minute to find my rhythm, and by the time I did, I felt like I was in the middle of an upper arm workout.
Kudos to all the apple grinders out there, I'm sure you've got some pretty sculpted muscles by now.
Once the apples pass through the grinder rotation, all the ground apples are collected together in an open-ended basket. It must have taken a few dozen apples to get that bucket filled to the brim! From there, we got to work rotating another crank that we spun over the basket and as it was being rotated, it screwed downward pressing alllll that yummy juice out of the apples. I say we at this point because I had to call in muscle reinforcements.
The mushed apples are strained of all their juice, and then collected below the press. I enjoyed seeing the fruits of my labor pouring down into that bowl! The old-fashioned cider press definitely added a hint of authenticity to my work as well. From there, we strained the juice of any extra sediment or fruit and funneled it into these great looking glass jugs.
And tada, we had our experience and our souvenir all wrapped in one! The gallon jug bore the logo of the orchard we visited and took away the need to buy the cider they mass machine pressed there, which made me pretty happy.
And so our cider pressing was complete - with some sore muscles, great photographs and delicious cider (which also later got used in a deee-lish apple reduction served atop pork chops).
I was one happy girl and as we got ready to head back to LA, we made a quintessential stop at the Snow-Line Orchards along the way.
The narrow, windy road that leads to this one is definitely worth the struggle upon arrival - when the scent of something delicious hits your nostrils and makes you leap from the car.
Each orchard in Oak Glen is kind of known for something different, and I thought it was very important for Chad to try out this one's specialty - apple cider donuts!
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| Donut Assembly Line!! |
The general store at Snow-Line has this little bakery nooked away in the corner - what one might imagine as hidden away beside shelves and shelves of apple butters and ciders and jams (oh my!) - but the large crowd grouping around gave it away as the main attraction.
Donuts were pumped out in assembly line fashion among the workers, doled out to the patient gatherers and devoured on site immediately. Underestimating our gluttony, we only ordered a half dozen.
They disappeared down our throats immediately. Lo and behold, he loved them! Im sure that was a birthday present in itself.
The donut batter is made with cider, with the finished product rolled in cinnamon sugar - creating the best deep fried taste of cinnamon apple ever!
Overall, it was a very fun experience. Hopefully it was equally reminiscent of both Chad and mine's childhoods while creating new memories for us together.
