I make baked apples every fall for two reasons: (1) they are soft and velvety and comforting and (2) they make my whole house smell delicious!
This version of Baked Apples (and, Yes, I do make a different version every time I make them, depending on my mood) has no added sugar except what is in the sweetened coconut. The sweetness level was just perfect in them, and so I plan on making these again and again this fall. Especially when my neighbors drop off excess apples on our doorstep.
When the air turns crisp and cool, I become a bit nostalgic. I grew up in southern Arizona, so fall leaves were a rarity for us kids. But, there was one place we could always find them: my great grandma’s house! We would load up in the station wagon and drive the 3 hours to her house. There was, of course some unpleasantness, as is expected when you load six siblings into a station wagon. ((Mom, she’s touching me! Mom, he’s looking at me! )) But, it was always worth the trip. You see, my grandma had about a dozen huge pecan trees in her back yard that made a crispy brown leaf ocean from fence to fence. We would rake them up into piles and then the fun would begin. We would jump into them over and over again, howling with laughter. Sort of an Old School ball pool, for you youngsters who can’t envision this scene. And then we would gather up all the leaves and hunt for the pecans. If there were pecans left on the trees, we would shake the trees until they fell off.
I used Braeburn apples for this recipe, which have the perfect sweetness and hold together well while cooking. If you want sweet baking apples, you could also use Jonagold or McIntosh.
Fall is here, y’all – so let’s embrace it! Find a pile of brown crispy leaves to fall over backwards into! Bust out the cardigans! Cook some stews and bake some apples!
Ingredients
- 1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
- 1 cup diced pecan also good with walnuts
- 4 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 6 sweet baking apples such as Braeburn, Jonagold or McIntosh
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Place apples on a flat surface with the stem up. Cut a significant amount of the apple out, centered on the core, in a cone shape, with the wide end up. Mix the coconut, nuts, coconut oil and cinnamon together and then fill the cored apples generously.
- Place in a casserole and bake for about 60 minutes, until apples are soft but still hold their shape. ((NOTE: cooking time varies according to size of apples, and to how much you cut out of the centers.)) Keep checking donness after 60 minutes time, every 5 minutes.
Walnut Stuffed Baked Apples, Foxes Love Lemons
Baked Apples with Apricot Glaze, Just a Taste
Baked Apples a la Mode, Fuji Mama
Waffle Iron Baked Apples, the Cupcake Project
