Baked Apple

A single-serving baked apple from a children's menu section, written in the shorthand of a book that assumed the cook already knew what she was doing.

• Oven temperature"Moderate oven" in books of this kind generally corresponds to somewhere around 350-375F. A whole cored apple takes roughly 35 to 45 minutes at that heat, depending on size and variety; it is done when a knife slides through the flesh without resistance.
• Cinnamon is unmeasuredThe ingredient list omits it but the method calls for it. A scant quarter teaspoon mixed into the two tablespoons of sugar is about right for one apple.
• Choose a baking appleVarieties that hold their shape are what this needs: Rome Beauty, Northern Spy, Braeburn or Granny Smith. A soft eating apple such as McIntosh collapses into sauce inside its skin.
• Core, do not pierce throughLeave the bottom half-inch of the apple intact so the sugar syrup stays in the cavity instead of running out onto the pan. A melon baller or apple corer worked from the stem end downward does this cleanly.
• Score the skinA shallow ring cut around the apple's circumference, or a few pricks with a fork, keeps the skin from splitting and shedding as the flesh swells.
• Vessel and liquidUse a small baking dish rather than a flat sheet, and add a few tablespoons of water to the dish itself as well. It keeps the sugar that escapes from scorching and lets you spoon the syrup back over the apple.
• YieldOne apple, one serving. Scaled up, allow one apple per person and bake them in a single dish so they share the syrup.