Baked Apples

Another variant on the apple as dessert, these are apples stuffed with apple and crumble and baked to perfect softness.

We used a stoplight trio of apples for this recipe - as you would expect, the granny smith stayed firmer than the red apple - but the apples can be tailored to their consumers' preferences.

Apples Used: 23/40

Recipe from Creme de la Crumb.

Ingredients:

-3 Apples

-1 T butter
-2 T brown sugar
-pinch cinnamon

-1/8 c flour
-1/8 c oats
-1/12 c brown sugar
-1/16 c white sugar
-pinch salt
-pinch cinnamon
-1 T butter, cold

Core, peel and chop one apple. Saute this in a pan with 1 T butter, 2 T brown sugar, and a pinch of cinnamon, until the apples are cooked and soft.

Meanwhile, prepare the crumble base by combining flour, oats, brown sugar, white sugar, salt and cinnamon. I know that I included small measurements, and one of them I miscalculated from the source recipe, but do your best to approximate the quantities. Core the remaining two apples and scrape out a sizable cavity for the filling, I used a grapefruit spoon for effective control.

My aunt gave me two ceramic dishes specifically made for baking individual apples. They have little clay points in the bottom around which a cored apples fits nicely. You do not need a ceramic apple baking dish, however, you can use a glass baking dish.

Stuff the apples half each with sauteed apples, really cram it in there. Finish the crumble by cutting the remaining 1 T butter into small pieces and mixing into the crumble base. Top off the apples with crumble and surround with any remaining filling.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or more as needed or until the crumble looks golden brown.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

The ice cream lent a lovely smoothness to the dish. It amounts to the dessert equivalent of a twice-baked potato, self-containing all the assortment of flavors you would expect with an apple crumble dessert.