Baked Stuffed Apples
Baked Stuffed Apples
Note from Mamta: This used to be a favourite with my late English neighbour Beryl, who I first met in 1975, when we moved into a house across the road from them. It was a small cul-de-sac. They were a lovely, gentle, retired couple, but quite reserved. It took me a while to get to know them, but then we became good friends. Her husband taught me a lot about gardening in the cold English weather.
They never tasted any of my 'foreign' food, even when they came to our once a year neighbours parties. I always made them something English, just to make them feel welcome and at ease.
She taught me how to make this dish. They used to have it at least once a week, sometimes with custard and sometimes with vanilla ice cream.
Try making it with different types of apples. I usually make it with Granny Smith apples, which are quite tart. The pictures here show dessert apples. They are delicious served either with custard or with vanilla ice-cream.
Serves 2, 4 if you serve half each.
Ingredients
- 2 cooking or other tart apples
- 2 tbsp. dry fruit mix (sultanas/raisins and cashews/almonds), chopped. Also see other filling ideas below.
- 2-3 tbsp. fruit juice or water to bind mixed fruit
- 2 tsp butter
- 1 tbsp. whole milk powder like Nestles (optional)
Instructions
- Heat oven to 200?C/400?F/Gas Mark 6
- Wash and wipe apples dry.
- Remove the central core from the apples without breaking them. It may be easier to do it with either an apple corer or a potato peeler.
- Make a shallow cut through the skin, across the central circumference of each apple. This is to allow the skin to split evenly and not break up randomly.
- Mix the fruit and juice to bind them together.
- Fill the centre core of each apple with the filling, pushing it in with a small spoon.
- Place apples in a shallow, oven proof dish, top with a knob of butter.
- Cover loosely with a piece of aluminium foil and bake in the centre of a hot oven for about 35-45 minutes or until the apples are soft.
- Serve hot, with either a scoop or two of vanilla ice-cream or custard or lightly sweetened yoghurt.
- Other filling ideas:
- Mashed bananas, porridge oats and brown sugar.
- Other nuts like Brazil nuts or hazelnuts, bound with honey.
- Mincemeat (an English mix of raisins, sultanas, nuts, lemon/orange, candied orange/lemon peel, sugar, chopped apples, dry berries, mixed spice etc.). it can be bought ready-made from most supermarkets.
- Chopped chocolate, chopped fresh or preserved ginger and crumbled paneer or ricotta cheese.
- Simply nuts, sugar and butter.
- Cranberries or raspberries and sugar.
- Any Jam of your choice.