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. 🙂
Preheat oven to 350F.
Wash and core the apples. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the jam, ground nuts, and cinnamon. Stuff the apples with this mixture, then place them in a buttered casserole dish. Add butter on top of each apple.
Bake apples for about 50 minutes or until easy to poke with a fork (they should be soft and the skin should blister to reveal runny juices). Add extra water during baking if necessary, to prevent the apples from sticking to the pan.
Take apples out of the oven and let them cool down.
Add extra jam/preserve on top just before serving, if desired, as well as chopped walnuts/pecans for texture. You can also add whipped cream if you wish.
Take time to admire their glorious beauty and their fruity and buttery smell 🙂
My family loves this stuffed apple recipe because the apples are light, yet still packed with 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 🙂
Apples stuffed with nuts and jam
Ingredients
- 5 medium-size apples
- 1/2 stick unsalted butter, divided evenly into 5 pieces + more for buttering the casserole dish
- 4 tbsp ground walnuts or pecans
- 2 tbsp roughly chopped walnuts or pecans
- 4 tbsp jam or preserve of choice + extra, for serving, if desired
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 cup water, room temperature + extra, if needed
- Whipped cream (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Wash and core the apples. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the jam, ground nuts, and cinnamon. Stuff the apples with this mixture, then place them in a buttered casserole dish. Add butter on top of each apple. Pour water into the casserole.
- Bake apples for around 1 hour or until easy to poke with a fork (they should be soft and the skin should blister to reveal runny juices). Add extra water during baking if necessary, to prevent the apples from sticking to the pan.
- Take apples out of the oven and cool down. Add extra jam/preserve on top just before serving, if desired, as well as chopped walnuts/pecans for texture. You can also add whipped cream if you wish.
- Enjoy!
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