The Baked Apple Bake-off

Maybe I shouldn't call this a "bake off" since there were only two entries. Yeah. Maybe I need to try MORE baked apple recipes - all for the "bake off", of course. Really, I just had two different recipes I wanted to try. Both were delicious (what's not to like about a baked apple in brown sugar with ice cream on the side?!), but I would choose the first one as my favorite. I liked the walnut/maple syrup combo better than the oat/almond duo.


This one came from Vegetarian Times. Aside from liking the walnut/maple syrup combo, I also liked that one serving was just half an apple as opposed to the whole thing.

4 large apples, such as Gala or Granny Smith, halved crosswise and cored

2 tsp. lemon juice, divided

2 Tbs. light or dark brown sugar

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 cup maple syrup

1/8 tsp. salt

1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts

Preheat oven to 400°F. Brush cut sides of apples with 1 tsp. lemon juice. Arrange apples, cut sides up, in baking dish. Combine brown sugar and cinnamon in small bowl; sprinkle cut sides of apples with sugar mixture. Pour maple syrup in bottom of dish. Cover with foil, and bake 10 minutes. Uncover, and bake 15 minutes more, or until apples are tender. Transfer apples to serving platter.

Pour syrup and pan juices into small saucepan, and stir in remaining 1 tsp. lemon juice and salt; bring to a boil. Cook 2 minutes, or until sauce is thickened, whisking constantly. Stir in walnuts. Spoon sauce over apples, and serve warm.

My sister passed on this recipe. I followed her suggestion and didn't make the horizontal slits around the apples because it probably wouldn't have looked as nice (although mine still ended up looking a bit like a pile of . . .).

1 cup quick-cooking oats

1/2 cup sliced blanched almonds

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup semi-salted butter, softened

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

6 apples

With the rack in the middle position, preheat the oven to 400°F.

In a bowl, combine all the ingredients except the apples. Set aside.

Slice a thin layer off the top of each apple. Using a melon baller, dig out the core, leaving the bottom intact. Make a horizontal cut through the peel around each apple so the fruit doesn’t burst when baking.

Place the apples on a 13 x 9-inch baking dish. Divide the oat mixture among the apples, spooning it into the hollows and mounding it on the tops. Cover the dish with aluminum foil. Bake 30 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking until the oat mixture is lightly browned, 5 to 10 minutes.

Cool to room temperature. Serve as is or with vanilla ice cream.