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Baked Stuffed Apples
6 large tart red apples 1 cup chopped bananas 1 cup chopped cranberries 1 cup sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon Chopped nut-meats Whipped cream Cut off the stem end of the apples, but do not peel them. Remove all the core and part of the pulp, leaving the walls of the cup about three-fourths inch thick. Mix bananas, cranberries, sugar, and cinnamon. Fill the cavities in the apples with this mixture, cover with chopped nut-meats, and bake in the oven until tender. Serve cold with a spoonful of whipped cream on top of each apple.
A straightforward baked apple with a raw fruit stuffing; the only real variables are the oven temperature and the depth of the wall you leave when you hollow them out.
- Oven temperatureThe original gives none. Bake at 350F, uncovered, in a dish with a little water in the bottom to keep the drippings from scorching. Large apples take 40 to 55 minutes.
- Choosing the apples"Large tart red" in the period meant something like a Jonathan, Rome Beauty or Baldwin. Rome Beauty holds its shape best; Granny Smith works but is green. Avoid Red Delicious, which collapses to mush.
- The three-quarter-inch wallThe recipe specifies this thickness. Thinner walls are more likely to split or slump as the fruit softens, so leave them generously thick; scoring a shallow ring around the equator may help the skin give without bursting.
- CranberriesFresh or frozen both work, chopped coarsely. Frozen need no thawing, though they will add a few minutes to the baking. A cup of chopped cranberries with a cup of sugar is quite sweet by modern taste; two-thirds of a cup of sugar is nearer the mark if you want the tartness to show.
- BananasUse them barely ripe. Fully ripe bananas dissolve into the syrup and the filling loses any texture.
- Nut-meatsAn older term for shelled nut kernels. Walnuts or pecans are appropriate. The recipe adds them before baking; if you find they darken too much over the full bake, scatter them on in the last 15 minutes instead.
- Yield and servingSix apples, one per person. They are meant to be served cold, so bake them ahead; the filling firms and the juices thicken as they sit. Whip the cream unsweetened to offset the sugared filling.