Adventures in Apples
In honor of apple season in New York, I wanted to post pictures from my latest adventure in the kitchen: Baked Apples.
Even though all my apple baking actually took place in Arizona, they were still just as tasty!! I googled and Food Network'd about 10 different recipes for Baked Apples, and none were passing taste tests in my mind. So, I decided to combine a few of the recipes, and mix in a few of my own ideas. Even though, I know nothing about baking apples, I figured I'd stick to ingredients I knew I'd enjoy solo. Combined, they would hopefully be delizioso! My favorite part of them was the sauce I made to drizzle over it. It was custardy, creamy and sinful. I unfortunately didn't get any pictures of it... But just trust me on this one.
I was surprised to find, the next morning, the apples were even better cold. It sort of tasted like apple pie minus the crust. I'm a fan of cold, not hot apples I suppose. The flavors of the cinnamon, brown sugar and cream infused the apple overnight in the fridge for an even more potent taste.
Here is a loosely based recipe on what I threw into the recipe...Feel free to add/subtract/substitute as you like... The trick is to not overbake the apples. Just soft enough on the inside, but still a cripsy skin on the outside. Also, just an FYI, apples explode in the oven if they don't have some of the skin sliced off (or, in this recipe's case, the top 1/3 sliced off). Nobody wants an exploded apple incident in their shiny new Electrolux.
4 large McIntosh or Empire apples, cored
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup instant oatmeal mix or rolled oats
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, a healthy grating
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Sprinkle cored apples with lemon juice. Mix next 7 ingredients and over-stuff apples. Bake 20 minutes in a small oven safe dish. I obviously doubled the recipe for this batch in the photo.
For the sauce, if you don't stir constantly, it'll be burned and nasty!! So keep stirin'!!
1/2 pint light vanilla ice cream, melted
2 egg yolks
Heat the melted ice cream in a small saucepan over low heat until hot. Meanwhile, put the yolks in a mixing bowl and whisk until smooth. While whisking, slowly drizzle about 1 or 2 tablespoons hot melted ice cream into the yolks until blended. While whisking constantly, slowly add the rest of the hot liquid to the yolk mixture. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and return to low heat.
Sorry, this picture is blurry, but it's the final product minus the creamy, custardy yumminess.
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