Baked apples are one of my favorite comfort foods ever. Whether they’re wrapped in tin foil and cooked for an hour in the embers of a campfire or, like I made mine, heated in the microwave for a few minutes, they’re warm and sweet and juicy and delicious. The recipe that I’m going to write about is one I created because of how much I love the pairing of maple, cinnamon, and apple flavors together. It always smells and tastes like Fall :) So, making baked apples is really easy, and from start to finish, you can probably have yourself a delicious snack in about 5 minutes.

First of all, the ingredients. You can use a red or green apple, although I think red (I chose a Gala apple) tastes a lot better for this recipe. Try to avoid using Red Delicious for anything that requires cooking or baking (baked apples, apple pie/crumble, applesauce) because their texture isn’t as solid as other varieties of apple, and it won’t hold up well at all in most recipes. You’ll end up with a pile of mush :/

For the filling of the apple, I used raisins, pecans, sugar, maple syrup, and some cinnamon and nutmeg. It’s fun to get creative with what you stuff your apple with, though. I’ve added red hot candies, walnuts, almonds, dried cranberries, and basically just whatever’s around.

My ingredients.

The first step is to use a knife to cut the core out. Most people don’t have apple corers, so it’s fine to just use a butter knife. That’s what I did. If you angle it towards the center a little bit, it’s actually really easy and you can just pull out the little cone shape and scrape out the rest of the core with a spoon.

Once the core was all out, I mixed up the filling. First, I added 2 packs of sugar to some chopped pecans. Baked apples usually have brown sugar in the fillings, but I used this “sugar in the raw” because I didn’t have any brown sugar. Plus, the maple syrup adds a lot of sweetness, too.

In nature, sugar is very sticky and syrupy, but when it’s refined, they separate it into what becomes white sugar and the liquid that we know as molasses. Brown sugar is simply white sugar with some molasses still un-separated. The sugar in this packet of “Sugar in the Raw” is very close to white sugar, but just slightly less processed so that it has a little of the brown part still in it.

Once I added the sugar, I mixed in a small handful of raisins.

Then, I added cinnamon and nutmeg. They give it that cozy, Fall-ish, apple pie sort of smell and taste :) These handy little jars of spices are from a travel spice kit that my mom bought me as a graduation present.

When everything was mixed together, I used a spoon to fill the apple with the filling.

I put it in a microwave-safe mug (it’s good to use a mug or a bowl so that all the juices and sugar and drippings don’t spill everywhere).

Then, I poured some of the maple syrup on top.

I cut up a tiny bit of butter into pieces and put them on top of the filling.

Then I cooked it for two minutes in the microwave. It smelled so delicious :D Like apple and buttery, syrupy, sweet goodness.

Here’s my recipe:

Microwave Maple Cinnamon Baked Apple

Ingredients:

1 medium-sized Gala apple

A small handful of each raisins and chopped pecans (or any kind of nuts/whatever filling you want to use)

2 teaspoons of sugar

¼ teaspoon each cinnamon and nutmeg

About 1 Tablespoon of maple syrup

A tiny bit of butter (like ½ teaspoon) cut into small pieces

Directions:

Wash the apple and cut out the core. Scrape out any core or seeds that are left, but leave the bottom in tact.

Mix together the nuts, raisins, sugar, and spices.

Fill the apple with the mixture and place it in a microwave-safe mug or bowl.

Pour the syrup over the top and arrange the butter pieces on top of the filling. Microwave for 1 ½ to 2 minutes on high power.

Enjoy!