Melissa Clark's Spiced Baked Apples with Maple Caramel Sauce

Although the days have been getting shorter and cooler, autumn really descended upon us this weekend - it was gray and incessantly rainy and the kind of weekend where you just want to stay indoors, watching movies or reading a book on the couch, while the sweet, spicy smell of something baking wafts through the house. Last week, I had gone through some of my older newspaper clippings and found a recipe for baked apples from the New York Times that I meant to make that same evening. Life, however, kept on getting in the way, and I wasn't able to get around to them until Sunday. No matter - they were wonderful; yielding, tender apples, complex spices, soul- and belly-warming in their flavor and simplicity. This recipe is a real winner - it's staying in my little book for a long time.

I bought four Empire apples and peeled off a strip of skin around the stem of the apple. Then, using a small paring knife, I attempted to core the apples, (mother and father, please skip over the next part) superficially stabbing my palm in the process. Yeah, I'd probably buy an apple corer or melon baller before making these again. Gritting my teeth and holding onto the apples tighter, I was able to wrest the cores and pits from the apples, but it was a bit of a pain-in-the-neck procedure. But don't worry, there was no bleeding... Once the apples were cored and slit six times apiece, I put them in a buttered cake pan.

I put a dab of butter and a splash of maple syrup into each apple cavity. Then I mixed together some brown sugar (one half less than actually called for), chopped pecans, and baking raisins, and divided this mixture between the apples. I poured maple syrup (again, less than called for) into a bowl, added white wine, a cinnamon stick, a piece of ginger and some ground cardamom and cloves (whole cloves and cardamom pods were called for, but I didn't have them, so I eyeballed about an 1/8 of a teaspoon, ground, each), mixed it all together and poured this into the pan around the apples.

The pan went into the oven. Every ten minutes or so, I took the pan out and basted the apples with the liquid (alternately using a brush or a spoon) until the apples were tender. It took a bit over an hour. I let them cool for bit before eating one with a knife and fork. It was delicious - the wine and maple syrup had taken on a complexity that was rounded out by all those spices. The sweet pecans tied the whole thing together - pecans and apples go so well together! Using less brown sugar and maple syrup was a good idea - they were sweet but not cloyingly so. And although I had friends over for dinner last night, I didn't share even a single apple with them (lest you think I am totally greedy, don't worry, they got something else). But these apples are all for me.

Comments

[Georgia]

Oh my God, I have been fantasizing about baked apples all night and wishing that I could get home before midnight to make them or that our microwave wasn't broken so I could at least have a bad microwave version, and now, at almost 1am, when I'm reading my blogs and trying to talk myself into going to sleep, there they are, the apples of my dreams, all warm and wonderful! I've never tried making them with maple syrup, but they look good -- I'll have to try them tomorrow. Look for a review in my Fri. post. (By the way, to core the apples, put them on a cutting board, insert the knife straight down into the apple 4 or 5 times around the core, then flip the apple and do the same from the bottom -- you should be able to push the core right out.)

[Luisa]

Hi Georgia! I'm so glad you found the apples of your dreams here! They're so great - can't wait to hear what you think of them. And thank you for the coring tip, I will try it next time (the recipe said that the hole shouldn't extend to the end of the apple so that the butter and juices stay within, but with my mauled apples that didn't matter much anyway).