Foodishly Yours: Baked Apples

Baked apples say "autumn" to me. I love their sweet intensity! Their aroma fills the house with smells of cinnamon, caramelized sugar, and tart apple. I like big, crisp apples for baking. I tend to stay away from "Delicious" varietals and Rome Beauty or Red Rome apples. They are a little too sweet and mushy for me. Today I chose Jonagolds from California. It helped that I could taste them before buying them. I was at Whole Foods and they had samples of each apple type. I also chose organic. Most important is that the apples don't have that oily wax that some producers put on them to preserve them when shipping. In this instance, size does matter. The bigger the apple, the more flesh you will have and you won't have a shriveled, wrinkled dessert when you pull them from the oven.

I have always made baked apples from memory, adding a little of this and that, whatever I had in the pantry. That doesn't work well when you are trying to show others how its done. This recipe is fashioned after one from the Simply Recipes website, although I doubled the ingredients for the brown sugar/spice mixture. I think my apples were too big for the recipe!

Serves: 4
Start to Finish: About and hour

4 large apples
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup dried fruit (raisins, currents, dried cranberries; any or all)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
1 Tablespoon butter
3/4 cup boiling water

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

To prepare apples: wash and, using a knife or an apple corer, core out the apple to remove all seeds and fibrous material. Cut down through the stem area to nearly the bottom of the apple (but don't cut all the way through). A small spoon is handy for removing all the seeds and core material. The holes in the apples should be 1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter. Place apples in a square baking pan.

In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, dried fruit, and chopped nuts (if you're using them). Mix the ingredients until they are well combined. Stuff each of the apples with sugar/spice mixture. Top each apple with a little dot of butter.

Add the boiling water to the pan. Bake for 30-45 minutes, just until the apples are soft but not mushy. Remove from oven and baste each of the apples several times with the pan juices.