Baked Apples

Adapted from Something Sweet by Jack Bishop (Houghton Mifflin, 1997)

Serves 4

We enjoy these baked apples when late fall turns into full-fledged winter.

This is a simple recipe, but it helps to read it through before you begin so the sequence is clear. You don’t want, for example, the butter to start hardening before you’ve brushed the apples with it.

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ cup walnuts
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
⅓ cup raisins
¼ cup firmly packed brown sugar
4 large apples (I like Honeycrisp)
½ cup apple juice or apple cider
Heavy cream or vanilla ice cream, optional (both are very good)

You can do the following two steps in advance:

(1) Blitz the walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon in a food processor fitted with the metal blade until the nuts are finely chopped but not powdery—you want some texture. Transfer to a bowl wide enough to roll the apples in later.

(2) In another small bowl, combine the raisins and brown sugar.

When you are ready to bake, heat the oven to 400°F.

Melt the butter in a small pan or in the microwave.

Core the apples, then peel the top half of each with a vegetable peeler.

Fill the centers with the raisin–brown sugar mixture.

Brush the peeled portions with melted butter, reserving some of the butter.

Roll the buttered sections in the nut mixture until well coated.

Set the apples in a small baking dish. Drizzle the remaining butter over the tops and pour the apple juice or cider into the bottom of the dish.

Bake until the nut coating is golden and the apples are tender when pierced with a small knife, 35 to 40 minutes.

Serve warm with the pan juices and, if you like, heavy cream (poured, not whipped) or vanilla ice cream.

Something Sweet is a small, charming book with thirty-seven big-flavor recipes.