Make Perfectly Baked Apples (Taste exactly like Apple Crisp)

• Food: Baked Apples
• Writer: Lizzie Green
• Content-Type: Food Blog

Do you have a sweet tooth? Baked apples are a delicious dish that incorporates fresh fruit. They have the same flavor as an apple crisp but are considerably cuter.

It’s all in the method with this baked apple recipe, but it’s not difficult. I’ll walk you through it in the sections below.

This recipe just calls for a few ingredients: apples, oats, coconut or brown sugar, optional pecans or walnuts, and butter. To amp up the flavor, we’ll add a pinch of cinnamon and a pinch of salt.

With a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of creamy yogurt, serve these healthful baked apples. They’re sweet enough to taste like a treat while being healthy.

Baked apples can be served as a special dessert or a fun weekend project.

How to make Baked Apples?

Individual Pear and Apple Crisps are a completely redesigned version of one of my oldest sweets. The complete recipe can be found below, but there are a few important things that make this dish work:

Pick your apples carefully.

In my experiments, Honeycrisp and Gala apples worked best (I also tried Granny Smith and Fuji). If I had to choose, I’d go with Honeycrisp, which is what these photographs reveal. Even after baking, they are considerable in size, flavorful, and colorful.

Carefully prepare the apples.

Because of how we slice the apples (a skill I learned from my beloved America’s Test Kitchen guidebook), this baked apple recipe produces gorgeous and delicious results.

Slicing the tops of the apples makes it easier to scoop out the insides and provides more surface area for steam to escape from the apple flesh, lessening the risk of the skin splitting open.

The tops create a micro-environment that helps the apples bake evenly and keeps the filling from turning overly brown. All of this, plus the apple tops are adorable!

Fill the container halfway with water.

Pour some water into a square baking dish once you’ve nestled the prepped apples into it. While baking, the water will assist steam and softening the apples, preventing them from drying out.

Baked Apples

Every time, these delicious baked apples turn out wonderfully! Tender apples are packed with a buttery oat mixture in this baked apple recipe.

It’s simple to make gluten-free, dairy-free/vegan, and nut-free versions—for more information, read the recipe notes. This recipe makes 4 cooked apples.

INGREDIENTS

• 4 medium Honeycrisp or Gala apples
• ½ cup old-fashioned oats
• ¼ cup lightly packed coconut sugar or brown sugar
• ¼ cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional but recommended)
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Pinch of fine salt
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• ¾ cup water
• Optional serving suggestions: Scoop of vanilla ice cream or plain Greek yogurt

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit (190 degrees Celsius).
2. Combine the oats, sugar, pecans, cinnamon, and salt in a medium mixing basin. Melt the butter and add it to the mixture. Stir until the mixture is thoroughly blended and moistened. Remove from the equation.
3. Reserving the tops, slice off the tops of the apples below the stem line (approximately 34 to 1-inch down the apple). Then, with a little spoon (a grapefruit spoon is perfect; otherwise, be extra cautious), scoop out the centers, leaving a 12-inch border around the edges and along the bottom. Just make sure you don’t go all the way through the apple.
4. In a medium-sized baking dish, place the apples upright (large enough to accommodate the apples without them touching each other or the sides of the pan). Slice a small chunk off the bottom of the apples if they wobble at all to make them more flat and stable.
5. Distribute the filling among the apples, then put any leftover filling around the tops of the holes before replacing the apple tops.
6. To surround the apples, pour the water into the dish’s base. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a skewer or tiny paring knife pushed through the side and down to the bottom of the apple meets only slight resistance. Try baking the apples for the full 55 minutes if you prefer softer apples.
7. Allow the apples to cool somewhat before carefully moving each to its own plate. As desired, serve.

NOTES

• ELIMINATE THE GLUTEN: Use gluten-free oats if possible.
• NUT-FREE OPTION: Omit the nuts.
• TO MAKE IT DAIRY-FREE/VEGAN: Vegan butter, such as Miyoko’s Creamery, can be substituted. I haven’t tried it yet, but it should be fine.