Three Things to do with Baked Apples
I’m really writing this one to proselytize on behalf of the humble baked apple. It’s so maligned, an after-thought of an apologetic little dessert. Which was appropriately forgotten when the actual time for dessert arrived … until the next morning, when they transformed breakfast into something amazing.
This was just as well. I can hardly imagine the caterwauling and carrying on I would have faced if I had brought a warm, wrinkly apple to the table and tried to pass it off as dessert.
And then I started using the rest of them and realized how much more they could do. This is my favorite kind of food discovery, a simple preparation that makes a humble and affordable ingredient especially flexible.
If you don’t have a current favorite baked apple recipe, here’s a classic one to start with. Make 8 or a dozen apples and use them up all week long, in:
- Oatmeal. Just throw the whole thing in the bowl, toss the oats over it and stir/mash it up with a spoon.
- As a bottom for cobbler, with biscuit dough on top and the apples especially flavorful and caramelized.
- In quick, easy, mini apple pies. Get miniature phyllo cups, scoop in a little bit of apple and warm at 300 for just a few minutes. Use a melon baller to scoop a tiny bit of vanilla ice cream on top.
