Baked Apples for Pudding on Mother's Day

What a wonderful Mother's Day! Slept in, had breakfast in bed, then headed off to visit my family for lunch.  Then onto afternoon tea with four generations of our family: Little Miss 4, myself, my mother and Auntie and my Grandmother had a lovely afternoon tea catch-up. Never better than spending time with the family.

For lunch the Man-of-the-House cooked fresh tomato soup, followed by lamb chops served with glazed pumpkin, potato with butter and parsley, and honey-ginger swede. Pudding was my responsibility, so inspired by the Granny Smith apples on Mum's tree I decided to make baked stuffed apples.

Baked Stuffed Apples - based on my vague recollection of a Peter Gordon Recipe

9 cooking apples
1 cup rolled oats
3 tablespoons honey
75g butter + 2 tablespoons extra
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
a couple of handfuls of raisins

Gather your apples and wash and dry them. Preheat the oven to 175deg. C.
Melt the first measure of butter in a frying pan and add the oats. Gently fry until they start to crisp. Add the honey and cinnamon and stir until the honey melts and is blended with the oats. Lastly stir in the raisins. 

Take from the heat and set aside to cool a bit.
Core the apples using a standard coring devise and peel the top half of the skin from each apple. 

As each apple is cored and peeled, stuff it with the oat mixture and brush the extra measure of melted butter - by doing this immediately it prevents the apples from oxidising and turning brown. 

Place the stuffed apples into a large shallow baking dish and bake for about 40 minutes until they have become soft and pulpy inside. If the raisins in the filling start to burn, then cover each apple's filling with a small cooking foil 'hat'.












Serve your baked apples with ice cream or custard.

Happy Mother's Day!