For this particular regex, you could rewrite it using a look-ahead and look-behind assertion.... 
s/(?<=apple)(banana)(?=chocolate)/$fruitcolors{$1}/i;

[download]
Seems a bit better than replacing pieces with identical copies of themselves.....

Update: removed superfluous /e that japhy points out below

-Blake

In reply to Re: Expressionless : by blakem
in thread Expression evaluation in search and replace regex by JojoLinkyBob

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