Baked Apples

With apples in the house, I decided to take a stab at making baked apples. I found a recipe at SimplyRecipes.com that looked easy enough. I was happy to realize I already had the ingredients or something close enough to make the dish.

Baked Apples

4 large baking apples, I used Granny Smith (I only had three)

¼ cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ cup chopped walnuts (the original recipe called for pecans)

¼ cup chopped dried cranberries (the original recipe called for currants or raisins)

1 tablespoon butter

¾ cup boiling water

I preheat the oven to 375-degrees. While the oven heated up, I rinsed and dried the apples and gathered my ingredients.

I cut out the cores using a sharp paring knife, leaving the bottom ½-inch intact. The hole should be about an inch wide. It is helpful to cut around the stem with a knife and then scoop out the seeds with a small metal spoon.

I must add a caution at this point. Use extreme care when using a paring knife. It is a little tricky to work the knife around the core. I used a touch too much torque attempting to work my way around the core. As a result, the blade shot through the apple and plunged into my hand in a split second. There was a lot of bleeding, but the cut was clean and luckily landed in the least problematic spot on my hand.

Once the bleeding stopped, I cleaned and bandaged my hand. Next, I put on a rubber glove to ensure I wouldn’t contaminate the food if the wound started bleeding again. Then, I carefully finished coring the apples. An apple corer would be a much safer option.

I put the brown sugar, cinnamon, cranberries, and walnuts in a small bowl, stirring them together. After putting the apples in a baking dish, I stuffed each with the sugar mixture. Finally, I cut the tablespoon of butter into quarters and put one on top of the sugar on each apple.

I poured the boiling water into the bottom of the baking dish and baked the apples for about 30 minutes. The apples were still firm, so I cooked them for another 10 minutes. At 40 minutes, the apples were cooked through and tender but not mushy.

I took the apples out of the oven and basted them with the pan juices. They were delicious without being overpoweringly sweet. I will make them again, but with more care with the knife.

Each apple has 191 calories, with 3 grams of fat, 44 carbs, and 1 gram of protein.