Baked Apples

So, growing up, my parents had an apple tree in the back yard by the swing set and I can remember going and helping pick these apples. Mom always made stuff like homemade apple sauce (with Red Hot cinnamon candies), pies, etc..

They came to visit me this weekend and brought me a boat-load of apples. I found a recipe for baked apples and decided to try it out.

(Above pictures borrowed from link at the bottom of this post. I'm pretty accident prone so I'm not quite able to core apples and take photos at the same time. I've almost lost a finger a time or two.)

You take 4 large apples wash and core them so the hole is about 3/4" wide. The tree doesn't produce the largest apples so I was able to get this done with 5 decent sized apples.

Mix together 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/4 cup chopped currants or raisins, 1/4 cup chopped pecans. I added a teeny tiny dash of nutmeg, ginger and cloves as well... Pack this inside of the apples (literally pack it) and then cut the butter into quarters and place it on top of the apples in an 8"x8" baking pan. Take the boiling water and pour it into the dish.

Bake @ 375 (I don't know how to make the degrees sign on a MacBook Pro - Get back to me later on that one) Fahrenheit for 30-40 minutes until they're soft but not mushy. Baste them with the juices from the bottom of the pan. They should look like this.... (Pic below is mine.. Not thieved...)

Serve those puppies up with some vanilla ice cream. Yum.

Recipe: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/baked_apples/