Baked Stuffed Apples with Raisins and Cinnamon Recipe

It’s winter in Brooklyn (eventually). Crackly, ice-sheeted sidewalks imply baked apples, perfumed with fir sugar and cinnamon, slicked with somewhat maple syrup, dabbed with butter, and braced by lemon juice.

I grew up with baked apples. They had been a daily winter deal with within the chilly heart of South Africa, the place my mother baked them in the identical Pyrex dish that held, on wet days, rolled-up, snuggled, cinnamon-scented crêpes. The apples got here to the desk molten. Wisps of escaping steam had been a warning my father by no means heeded. He’d take a sometimes assured mouthful and shout, “They’re scorching,” in wounded shock. They are scorching. Straight from the oven, the tender, fruit-filled baked apples seethe with warmth. The trick is to attend. Allow them to accept 5 minutes earlier than serving. Whereas they do, their scrumptious cooking juices flip to golden jelly. Then, they’re prepared in your spoon, and for a soothing cloud of whipped cream.

Right here’s methods to bake them complete. They could be a nourishing snack for one, or a rustically luxurious dessert for six.

Pictures by Marie Viljoen.

The aroma rising from a dish of baked apples is on the spot consolation. Their taste and fluffiness feed our emotions in a more healthy means than many consolation meals can. Apple pores and skin and dried fruits are filled with fiber, in addition to (relying on the dried fruit you select as a filling) minerals—like iron and antioxidants—in raisins and dried figs and plums, particularly. Even cinnamon is a strong anti-inflammatory and antioxidant.

And apples are in season for a protracted, lengthy time.

When you stay in an apple-growing area, native farmers markets supply a wider number of apples than many supermarkets do. No matter supply, some apples are higher for baking complete than others, holding their form by way of an hour of oven warmth. Nonetheless, even an imploded pome tastes fairly good; it’s simply higher as a midnight snack than the showpiece after dinner.

Among the greatest apples for baking are Braeburn, Cortland, Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Pink Girl, and Winesap. Sure, generally an apple could break up within the gradual warmth of the oven, however there’s something very interesting in that rupture. The distinction of caramelized pores and skin and tender flesh is seductive.

There is just one fiddly side to stuffing and baking apples complete: eradicating the core. My mom used an apple corer, and I’m starting to see its attraction. I exploit a thin, sharp knife, slicing down and round, and wiggling out the apple’s seedy, fibrous coronary heart.