Apple Honey Crisp

Maluspumila ‘Honey Crisp’

Characteristics

Culture

Honeycrisp, or Honey Crisp, is a modern apple variety, developed in the 1960s by Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station’s Horticultural Research Center at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. and introduced to the market in the 1990s. It is sometimes trademarked as Honeycrunch.

Honeycrisp is a medium-to-large sized apple, with a light green/yellow background largely covered with red-orange flush with strong hint of pink if grown in good sunlight. The skin may be flecked with occasional russet dots. The flesh is white, perhaps not quite as bright as a McIntosh style apple, but similarly crisp and not too dense.  The color however can be quite variable.

The flavor is sweet with very little trace of acidity and little depth or complexity. There can also be a trace of pear-drop flavor. In a good example this is a juicy and instantly refreshing apple, in a less good example it will be simply sweet and bland (but still very nice).  As its name suggests this is genuinely a crisp / crunchy apple.  However, since the flesh is quite light, the crunch is surprisingly soft, nothing like the hard crisp crunch of a good Golden Delicious.

Noteworthy Characteristics

The Honey Crisp apple is unique in that it was bred solely for taste, not for easy growing, storing, or shipping.  Honeycrisp tends to bruise easily, and therefore is usually sold in packs in stores rather than loose. Honeycrisp has a relatively long shelf life when kept in cold storage.

Problems

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Uses

The Honey Crisp apple is an extraordinary fresh-eating variety.  Because of its crunch factor, this apple makes a great snack.  Aside from fresh eating though, this apple makes fantastic apple pies and applesauce.  Because of this apple’s crisp texture, they are guaranteed to hold firm when baking.