Your baby will like the sweet juicy flavor and the challenge of picking these up will help develop her fine motor skills. These are super easy to make and great for any meal or as a snack!

Directions:
1. Wash, peel and core one to two golden delicious apples.

2. Cut the apples into slices about ¼ inch thick.

3. Place the slices of apples in plastic bag and sprinkle a dash of cinnamon over the apples slices. Close the bag and shake it up so the cinnamon is distributed evenly over all of the slices.

4. Place the slices in a microwave safe dish and cook them in the microwave on HIGH for 3 minutes. Let them stand for 5 minutes. They are done if a fork slides into them easily. Cool completely before serving.

Storage: Lasts four to five days in the refrigerator or up to two months in the freezer.

Age to introduce: About 9 months

Fun apple facts
Apples are everywhere: Apples are the most varied food on the planet. There are more than 7,500 varieties of apples grown in the world. The average American eats 19.6 pounds of apples a year — that is about one per week!

Upper crust
In early America, when times were tough, cooks often had to scrimp on ingredients. Apple pie was a favorite dish, but to save on lard and flour, only a bottom crust was made. More affluent households could afford both an upper and a lower crust, so those families became known as “the upper crust.”

The Big Apple
This nickname for one of our nation’s greatest cities, New York, dates from the 1930s and ’40s, when jazz jived in clubs across the country. The clubs of New York City were the favorite hotspots jazz greats like Charlie Parker. Manhattan soon became known for having “lots of apples on the tree” — that is, lots of places to play jazz.

Apple site-ings
To learn more about apples, find recipes, and fun for kids, check out these web sites.

Apples and More (www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/apples)

New York Apple Association (www.nyapplecountry.com/index.htm)

US Apple Association (www.usapple.org)

Washington State Apples Association (www.bestapples.com/index.html)

About the Authors:
Cheryl Tallman and Joan Ahlers are sisters, the mothers of five children, and founders of Fresh Baby (www.FreshBaby.com). Raised by parents who love fresh foods and entertaining, their mom, a gourmet cook, ensured that they were well-equipped with extraordinary skills in the kitchen. Both with long track records of business success, they decided to combine their skills in the kitchen with their knowledge of healthy foods and children to create Fresh Baby. Cheryl and Joan put a modern twist on the conventional wisdom that when you make it yourself, you know it’s better. Their goal at Fresh Baby is to make the task of raising a healthy eater a little bit easier for all parents. Fresh Baby’s breastfeeding accessories and baby food making supplies provide parents with practical knowledge and innovative tools to support them in introducing their children to great tasting, all-natural foods – easily and conveniently. Visit them online at www.FreshBaby.com and subscribe to their Fresh Ideas newsletter to get monthly ideas, tips and activities for developing your family’s healthy eating habits!