I love to go apple picking in the fall! Sadly, our busy work schedules along with my ongoing exhaustion (due to the pregnancy) have made any weekend getaways impossible this year. I still hope we’ll be able to go. In the meantime, I enjoy shopping at the local grocery stores and trying a variety of fruits from the new crops of the season. Braeburn apples are my favorite: with their sweet tart core and indulgent texture, I find them hard to resist and eat them all the time when in season. They are not available to buy yet though, so I have been buying Gala and Golden Delicious instead.
I bought Gala apples earlier this week and decided to use them in a dessert we like a lot, which is easy to make and also very light: stuffed apples. It is the perfect dessert for fall, when apples are at their best in terms of flavor and texture and walnuts are affordable. I used 5 apples, but you can use as many or as few as you like. I also like to use butter, which gives the apples a wholesome taste and a delicious shiny coating. The natural juices of the fruit along with the melted butter and the assertive flavor of the jam come together to create a symphony of simplicity that is hard to resist. 🙂
Ingredients
5 apples
1/2 stick unsalted butter
3 walnuts
2 tsp cinnamon sugar
Jam or preserve of your choice (I used raspberry jam)
Whipped cream (optional)
Wash and core the apples. Place them in a casserole dish which has been buttered. Fill the center of the apples with jam or preserve. Add a tsp of butter on top of each apple.
Pour 1 cup of water into the casserole dish. Put the dish in the oven and cook the apples for around 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the apples have softened. Add extra water during cooking if necessary to prevent the apples from sticking to the dish.
When the apples are done, take them out of the oven and let them cool down. Take time to admire their glorious beauty and their fruity and buttery smell.
Drizzle the apples with cinnamon sugar. Add an extra teaspoon of jam/preserve on top just before serving, as well as some chopped walnuts for texture. You can also add whipped cream if you wish – an extra bit of indulgence won’t hurt, or at least that’s what I think 🙂
My husband (who is not a fan of heavy desserts) loves this stuffed apple recipe because the apples are light, yet still full of flavor. As for me, I like the simplicity of this dish. It is fast to make, it stays true to itself, and it does not call for a lot of ingredients.
I hope to make this again soon with Braeburn instead of Gala. I wonder whether the overall taste of the dessert will be much different as a result of me using a different variety of apples. I’ll give it a try and I’ll report back.
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