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Baked Apple with Oatmeal
Pare and core the apples and fill the core space with left-over oatmeal mush. Put the apples in a baking dish; sprinkle with sugar; pour a little water into the bottom of the pan and bake in a moderate oven until the apples are tender. Serve warm with cream for breakfast or luncheon.
A thrift dish that assumes a pot of cooked porridge left from breakfast. It works with almost no adjustment, provided you choose an apple that holds its shape.
- Moderate ovenRead this as 350F. At that heat whole pared apples need roughly 35 to 50 minutes depending on size and variety; test with a skewer at the shoulder rather than going by the clock.
- Oatmeal mushCooked oat porridge, thick enough to hold a shape when cold. Leftover rolled or steel-cut oats both work; loosen stiff porridge with a spoonful of milk before packing it into the cores so it does not dry out to a plug.
- Choosing applesA firm baking apple such as Braeburn, Jonagold or Northern Spy will stay upright. Softer varieties collapse into sauce, which is not fatal but leaves the filling sitting in a puddle.
- ParingThe original pares the apples, which means the flesh will brown and dry at the surface. A pan covered with foil for the first two-thirds of the baking keeps them pale and tender; uncover to finish.
- Sugar and waterFigure a teaspoon or two of sugar per apple, and about a quarter inch of water in the dish. The water is there to stop the bottoms scorching and to make a thin syrup for basting, not to poach the fruit.
- Worth addingThe filling as written is plain. Cinnamon, a pinch of salt, raisins or chopped nuts stirred into the porridge all sit within the spirit of the recipe.
- Yield and servingOne apple per person, two for a hearty breakfast. Cream means pouring cream; heavy cream thinned with milk, or plain yogurt, both serve.
Baked apples are common in American household cookbooks of the period, and the oatmeal filling suggests this is a leftovers recipe rather than a dessert: cold porridge was a frequent surplus in houses where oatmeal was a standard winter breakfast, and it was often fried in slices or worked back into another dish. The instruction to serve it "for breakfast or luncheon" rather than after dinner places it on the plain side of the table, closer to porridge than to pie.