Fall weather brings with it the sights and smells of the season. Apples and pumpkin baked into pies and cobblers evoke memories of our childhood and holiday dinners. Picking the apples was probably the best part of the whole day. Baking apples in the oven brings out the most delicious aroma and makes your kitchen smell like apple pies. Honey baked apples are a family favorite and one that your kids will love.
Honey Baked Apples Recipe
Apples are at their peak this time of year. There are different varieties of apples for nearly every taste. Granny Smith apples are green and a little tart, while Red Delicious, Honeycrisp, and Fuji and sweet and juicy. This honey baked apples recipe calls for green apples, but you could use red apples if that is what you have on hand. Honeycrisp, Braeburn, and Jonagold are good choices for baking.
Substitutions: maple syrup, Karo syrup, and sugar can be substituted for honey. Likewise, you can substitute white sugar for brown sugar by adding 2 teaspoons of molasses to the sugar. Whipped cream can be used in place of ice cream if needed.
Why Honey Baked Apples are a Good Addition to Your Holiday Meals
The tradition of serving baked apples has been around since the colonial days. Cooks would bake apples in all sorts of dishes as it was extremely popular with people of all classes but was especially a favorite of nobility. Catherine the Great of Russia was said to be fond of Golden Delicious apples. In those days there were no so many sweet varieties as there are now. Cooks added butter, sugar, and cinnamon to make them taste more like pies. Honey roasted apples are a timely holiday tradition that has been handed down from generation to generation.
What Else Can You Do With Apples?
If you find that you have an abundance of apples there are a lot of things you can do to use them up. You can boil some of the apples to make applesauce. Once the apples are cooked just put them in the blender to make the applesauce smooth. Apples also go good with pork so you could serve them as a side dish with pork chops, or cubed and added to potato hash. Honey roasted apples make a good side dish with any meat or main entree.
This honey baked apples recipe has been around for a long time and will continue to be a welcome addition to any holiday meal.
If you like this apple recipe, try these!
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Honey Baked Apples
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
Ingredients
- 6 green apples
- 1½ cups fresh cranberries
- 2¼ cups water
- ¾ cup packed brown sugar
- 3 Tablespoons honey
- 6 scoops vanilla ice cream
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
- Core the apples, and remove the peel from the top third of each one. Place them in a baking dish, and fill the core holes with as many cranberries as you can fit.
- Meanwhile, stir together the water, brown sugar and honey in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar and honey if necessary. Once it comes to a boil, pour the mixture over the apples.
- Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, basting with the juices every 15 to 20 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream.
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 60
