Baked Apples

Serves 4

Something Sweet is a small book filled with big-flavor recipes. We enjoy these simple baked apples when late summer turns into full-fledged fall.

This is a simple recipe, but you should read it all the way through before you start so you understand the order of the steps, which is important because, for instance, you don’t want the butter to start hardening before you brush the tops of the apples with it.

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
½ cup walnuts
¼ cup granulated 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, but very good

You can do the following two steps in advance:

(1) Blitz the walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon together in a food processor fitted with the metal blade until the nuts are fine but not reduced to a powder. You want them to retain some texture. Set this mixture aside in a bowl wide enough to later roll the tops of the apples in.

(2) Mix the raisins and brown sugar in another small bowl.

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

Melt the butter in a small pan or the microwave.

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

Fill the hollow center of each apple with some of the raisin–brown sugar mixture.

Brush the peeled halves of the apples with melted butter, reserving some of the butter to use later.

Roll the peeled and buttered part of the apples in the nut–sugar mixture until the bare sections are well coated.

Place the apples in a small baking dish. Drizzle the remaining butter over the tops of the apples, then pour the apple juice or cider into the bottom of the pan.

Bake until the nut crust on the apples turns golden brown and the centers can be easily pierced with a small, thin knife, about 35 to 40 minutes.

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