Baked apple
- Not to be confused with the cloudberry, sometimes called a bakeapple or baked-apple berry .
A baked apple is an apple baked in an oven until it has become soft. The core is usually removed and the resulting cavity stuffed with fillings and seasonings. Wrapped in a pastry crust, it becomes an apple dumpling. Pears may be prepared in the same way.
Preparation
The apples are cored, often not through the bottom,[1] and sometimes peeled halfway down to prevent bursting.[2]
The cavity is filled with seasonings and sometimes other fillings.
Seasonings may include sweeteners such as brown sugar, honey, maple syrup, or fruit preserves;[3] spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, aniseed, and mace; butter; and liquids such as brandy, calvados, or wine.[4]
Fillings may be fresh or dried fruits such as raisins, dates, prunes, oatmeal, as well as nuts such as pistachios[4] or walnuts, which are typical in Bulgaria;[5] the Bosnian dish tufahije is also stuffed with walnuts, but is poached rather than baked. Many recipes include lemon juice for tartness.[2][6]
The apples are then baked until soft.
Variations
Baked apples can also be a savory dish, used as a side dish for roasts, or standing on their own, stuffed with sausage or mincemeat.[3]
A black cap is a kind of baked apple cut in two crosswise, cored, filled with lemon rind and candied orange peel or orange marmalade, reassembled, and baked with wine and sugar. The oven is started very hot to blacken the tops.[7]
Apples may be baked in order to dry them for storage. In the cuisine of Norfolk, England, a biffin or beefing is an apple which is baked between a weight, to flatten it into a cake, and a layer of straw, to absorb moisture, and usually made from the Norfolk Biffin cultivar.[8] It is typically served with cream after the skin is removed.[9]
Baked apple sauce is made by baking rather than boiling.[10]
A baked apple wrapped in a pastry crust is an apple dumpling.
Serving
Baked apples may be served with custard sauce, crème fraîche, sour cream, ice cream, heavy cream, and so on.[2]
See also
Notes
- ^ Touzalin, Jane (October 16, 2013). "Chat Leftovers: Baked apples". Washington Post. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
- ^ a b c Dorrie Greenspan, "For pure coziness, nothing beats the soft sweetness of a baked apple", Denver Post, October 10, 2016
- ^ a b Melissa Clark, "In Search of the Perfect Baked Apple", The New York Times, December 3, 2003
- ^ a b Baked Apples with Calvados, Saveur, January 22, 2007
- ^ Mike Benayoun, "Bulgaria: Pechani Yabalki", 196 flavors [1]
- ^ Twentieth Century Cook Book, an Up-to-date and Skillful Preparation on the Art of Cooking and Modern Candy Making Simplified, 1921, "Baked Apples with Dates", p. 105
- ^ "Black Caps par Excellence", Eliza Acton, Modern Cookery, in All Its Branches, 1845, p. 531
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. 'biffin'
- ^ "Norfold Dried Biffins", The Foods of England Project [2]
- ^ Eliza Acton, Modern Cookery, for Private Families, 1860, p. 124