Cider Baked Apples

Method

Pre-heat the oven.

Core and score the apples. Pour the cider or juice into a shallow baking dish. Lightly grease each apple with butter and stand the apples upright in the cider or juice. Bake them for 30 - 40 minutes, basting them with the liquid occasionally.

I’ve just come in from the garden with a few of the last remaining autumn raspberries to scatter over my breakfast muesli, feeling what a wonderful time of year this is. Despite my haphazard gardening methods (just as disorganized as those in my kitchen, I’m afraid), there are still many fruitful surprises to harvest – a loyal pepper or two, a marrow clinging on for dear life, my Swiss chard and Tuscan black cabbage (I must tell you about that some day) battling bravely against those hungry caterpillars, a solitary fig and an amazing crop of Katie apples. The latter are so delicious to eat as they drop from the branch into your hand, so I thought the damaged windfalls might make a good crumble. I used the recipe I gave you last month for the topping and added some blackberries to the fruit, and whilst it all went down quite happily with lashings of custard, the apple pieces retained a kind of dryness, which would stop me from cooking that one again.

Since then however, I have discovered Brian Martyn’s Yellow Bramleys, which he informed me are the best cooking apples around, and having tried them, I’m inclined to agree and are on sale in the village shop. Brian says he usually eats them stewed, but I fancied baking some. They are already so sweet, that I added no sugar. I guess we all do the same thing when baking apples, coring and scoring a line around the centre of each fruit, placing them in an ovenproof dish, then stuffing the centres with sultanas and a little brown sugar, dotting the apples with butter, spooning a couple of tablespoons of honey (or golden syrup) over them and baking them in the oven at around 200° for half an hour or so. That works well with these apples unsurprisingly.

For a change, I tried a Delia recipe for Cider baked apples with toasted muesli, which I am definitely going to repeat.

Mrs Trewhitless