M.F.K. Fisher: Baked Apples

B is for Baked Apples. I love apples and I love trying all the different varieties of apples. Golden Delicious are my current favorites with Pink Lady coming in second. Honeycrisps are also high on the list. I'm not a big fan of Granny Smith apples but have a few for my Thanksgiving salad, although now I know, from Serious Eats, that those probably are not the best for baking.

Given my love of apples, I decided the second recipe from The Art of Eating would be the baked apples on page 314.

Baked Apples

apples ... almost any kind, although Deliciouses are delicious
brown sugar (1 tablespoon for each apple)
cinnamon, nutmeg, raisins, dates, left-over jam
butter (optional)
water

Core the apples and put in a baking dish. Fill each hole with the fruit or jam, and put a dab of butter on top if you want to. Mix the sugar with enough water to fill the dish almost to the top, and bake slowly until the apples are tender.

Seemed easy enough. I used two Granny Smith stuffed with cinnamon, nutmeg and raisins and two Gala stuffed with cinnamon, nutmeg, and dried chopped dates. I was making my favorite quick bread and stuck the apples in also at 350 degrees for almost an hour. I had checked after half and hour and they seemed to need more time.

Well, they got too much time. As with many of my baking experiments, this did not go as planned. One Gala busted on me giving me applesauce of sorts.


I like recipes because they give me assurance that I can follow what they say and have something edible and potentially delicious when completed. I prefer recipes with temperatures and times and feel insecure without them. I also realize cooking methods, produce, and ovens have evolved in the 67 years since Fisher wrote this recipe. What I am saying is that I probably set myself up for failure.

Taste verdict: Not terribly sweet and not overwhelmingly wonderful. Topped with ice cream it was a nice, pleasant ending to a meal. However, I would rather have crisp, cobbler, or apple pie. The recipe is from How to Cook a Wolf which Fisher in essence wrote to describe ways to eat well on a budget and there is not necessarily a need for pie crust, just my own desire.

Rachel Ray has a baked apple recipe I've been tempted to try although it uses Grape Nuts (yuk). It does not use water--Fisher's is the only recipe I've seen that uses water--and includes times and temperatures, so I would be assured of success if made that dish.

I like the idea of baked apples, simple and rustic, not bad for you and not bad tasting. But what I really want to do is core an apple, stuff it with cinnamon, butter, and a few token raisins, and bake it in pie crust. That would be heaven.