All-American Pie

• While you may not be able to detect the taste of lemon juice in an apple pie, it changes the taste of the apples, heightening their flavor and making them taste more like fresh apples, with a barely perceptible tang. Add between 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons to a pie made with about 2 pounds of apples. For a more lemony taste, add a teaspoon or so of lemon zest in addition to the juice.

Apples for Lunch

• Not only does lemon juice stop apples from browning, but it also gives them a citrus taste that is not as strong as pure lemon juice alone. When you slice an apple and place it in a bag to take for lunch, squeeze half a lemon into the bag, ensuring all the apple slices are coated. The acid in lemon juice prevents the enzymes released by slicing from reacting with oxygen in the air and making the apples slices turn brown.

Apples for Drinking

• Adding a few tablespoons of lemon juice to your bottle of apple juice makes it taste better. Apples by themselves have plenty of sugar, and the acidic lemon juice balances all that sugar, giving the apple juice more depth of flavor and removing its cloying sweetness. You'll get a hint of lemony flavor as well. Add a bit of grated ginger for an additional flavor boost.

Lemons to the Rescue

• If your apples have lost freshness or if they were bland-tasting to begin with, lemon juice brightens their flavor. Homemade applesauce that doesn't taste flavorful benefits from a tablespoon of lemon juice along with a few sprinkles of cinnamon. To add life to bland-tasting baked apples, stir some lemon juice into a sugar and raisin filling or make a glaze with lemon juice and sugar to pour over the apples before serving.