How To: Make Mini Baked Apples with Flapjack Stuffing

This year I’ve brought so many apples home, from the orchards at work and from the trees on our allotment, that some of them, just a bit too small to be the ones grabbed from the fruit bowls for eating fresh, have ended up going slightly past their best.

I didn’t wanting to waste these small but surely tasty apples, and I didn’t want to spend ages peeling and chopping them up for purée or apple sauce. So I had a bit of a think about how best to use them, and decided to turn them into mini baked apples. With that basic plan formulated, I grabbed my apple corer and set to.

Here’s the rectangular cake tin filled with fifteen small, cored, but un-peeled apples. Mostly ‘Herefordshire Russet’ or ‘Court of Wick’, with one mystery apple thrown in.

I realised I needed to keep the skins on the apples, otherwise there’s a good chance they would have collapsed as they baked. Luckily I remembered to score lightly around the equator of each apple with a sharp knife, to hopefully discourage them from exploding.

I also realised that stuffing the holes would be a good idea, again to prevent them collapsing in the oven. To that end I made up a flapjack mix, with rolled oats, chopped cashews, a lump of butter and a dollop of honey. I could have added spices, or chopped dried fruit as well, but I wanted to keep the stuffing fairly neutral so the flavour of the apples had a chance to shine through.

Apologies for the lack of precise measurements, but honestly, you can just eyeball it, depending on how big your mini apples are and how big the core-holes are. If you’re trying these yourself, make sure there’s enough butter – or your solid fat of choice – and honey – or your sticky syrup of choice – to bind the oats into a dough-like consistency.

Here are the mini apples after they were stuffed with the flapjack mix:

I thought a lower, slower bake was a good idea, rather than risking a scorching – I wasn’t trying to make Black Caps, after all – so I set my fan oven to around 160°C (about 180°C regular, 360°F, or Gas mark 3) and then baked the apples for 15 minutes, checked on them, realised they needed a little longer, and gave them another 5 minutes before testing them for done-ness with a knife.

Again, I’m sorry I can’t be more precise than that, but your cooking time will vary greatly depending on the size of your apples. Just keep an eye on them, test them when they start to look like they might be done, and if the apples are nicely softened and there’s a lovely browned, crunchy topping to your flapjack stuffing, then there’s a good chance they’re good to go:

The more observant of you will have realised that I flipped the tray around when I brought them out of the oven, so the apples have been spun around by 180°. Also that only one of the apples seems to have collapsed, that being the mystery apple (originally second from right, top row, now second from left, bottom row), which was obviously made of much less stern stuff than the Russets and the ‘Wicks.

As for a serving suggestion, what could be better on a chilly, rainy, autumn evening than a couple of these mini baked apples with lashings of creamy custard?

The verdict? Absolutely delicious! The skins were a little chewy, but they added a lot of caramelised flavour. The apples themselves were light and fluffy, and the flapjack was soft and crumbly rather than solid and crunchy. I thought the custard was a perfect accompaniment, but if you prefer cream, ice cream, or would like them au naturel, then go for it. They’re also delicious cold from the fridge, giving them plenty of lunchbox and / or quick snack potential.

I’ll definitely be making these again, any time I have around fifteen smallish apples that need eating up.

What do you reckon? Do these mini baked apples with flapjack stuffing sound like your sort of thing? Would you spice them, stuff them differently, cook them via another method? Or would you just prefer a traditional, king-size baked apple instead? Please do let me know your thoughts, via the comments.