Traditional Baked Apples

The increasingly chilly days and dark evenings have got me craving comfort food. This traditional recipe for sticky and sweet baked apples is just the thing.

How to Bake Apples
from Marguerite Patten's Everyday Cooking

First choose your apples. I went for quirkily shaped British eating apples that had lost their crunch, but would be perfect for cooking. Core them using a knife, or if like me you have one in a draw full of miscellaneous utensils, use a corer. You can score the apples around the middle to reduce the chance of them splitting.

Now, make your mix to fill the centre. Basically the filling consists of a bit of butter with sugar in as many forms as you can think of! I didn't have any bramble jelly so substituted a Christmas fruit conserve that added a soft touch of spice. For each apple use:

2 teaspoons dried fruit
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 an ounce butter
2 teaspoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon bramble jelly
1 tablespoon golden syrup

Fill your apples, then pop in a 'moderately hot' oven (I use 180C in my fan oven) and bake for 40 minutes or until tender.

Let them cool down a bit before eating, as they really hold their heat. Pour the extra caramelised sauce on top and enjoy! They may not look like the most fancy dessert - rustic would be the nicest way to describe them! But, they certainly do the trick when you want an easy to make autumnal pudding that tastes delicious.

Do you have any traditional autumn recipes to recommend?