Something Sweet is a small book filled with big-flavor recipes. If you can find a copy, it makes a great stocking stuffer. I enjoy these simple baked apples when late summer has finally turned into full-fledged fall.
Baked Apples
Adapted from Something Sweet by Jack Bishop
Serves 4
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 (about 2 pounds) Use your favorite apple for baking. I like to use Honeycrisp.
½ cup apple juice or apple cider
Heavy cream or vanilla ice cream, optional, but very good
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Melt the butter.
Blitz the walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon together in a food processor fitted with the metal blade until the nuts are fine, without being reduced to a powder. You want them to retain some texture. Set this mixture aside in a shallow bowl, wide enough to roll the tops of the apples in in a later step.
In a separate small bowl combine the raisins and brown sugar.
Core the apples. Using a vegetable peeler, remove only the top half of the peel from each apple. I like a very basic Swedish 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 part of the apples in the nut-granulated-sugar mixture until the bare sections of the apples are well coated with the mixture.
Place the apples in a small baking dish. Drizzle them with the remaining butter, 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. This will take about 35 to 40 minutes.
Serve the apples warm, topped with the juice from the pan and, if you like, heavy cream (poured, not whipped) or vanilla ice cream.
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