BLACKBERRY-STUFFED BAKED APPLES

Think apple pie—without the guilt. 

What’s your favourite part of a just-baked crumble? Mine is the tender, tart fruit filling. Apples, especially. Here’s how to bake a bushel of beauties for your breakfast, minus the faff—and carby overload—of pastry. (Plus, you can still drown all in cream. What’s not to lust?) 

The hedgerows are studded with juiciness right now, coinciding with the apple harvest. This seasonal serendipity compels me to use the fruits together; and their flavours, the pucker of blackberries alongside the sweet apple, are a perfect pairing. 

I like to bake my apples using minimal ingredients. I don’t use butter. I don’t add sweetening. I don’t fiddle around with fiddly toppings. 

You don’t need them—I promise. 

All you do need is a sweet apple variety, like Braeburn, Cox, Royal Gala, or Pink Lady, a handful of your blackberry pickings, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. 

Baked apples are gorgeous eaten on their own, or added to a bowl of piping oatmeal, or granola. They make a ridiculously easy dessert, too: just douse in double cream, and spoon over some raw honey. HEAVEN. 

BLACKBERRY-STUFFED BAKED APPLES

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• Prep Time: 10
• Cook Time: 45
• Total Time: 55
• Yield: 5 bakes apples 1x

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Easy-as-apple-pie recipe for baking apples, without the pastry. All you need are your favourite berries, a sprinkling of cinnamon, and a few tart apples. A delicious breakfast topping or dessert!

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Scale 1x2x3x

Ingredients

1. 5 apples, cored
2. 1 cup blackberries
3. 1 tbsp cinnamon

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Instructions

• Preheat oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4.
• Wash apples well. Core each all the way through, so you’re left with a hollow tube from top to bottom.
• Place the apples inside a casserole dish, or any ovenproof baking dish.
• Stuff the apples with blackberries (or any berries you’ve got to hand). Dust generously with cinnamon.
• Fill the dish with water until just past a quarter of the apples—this is to stop them from burning on the bottom, or drying out, so you don’t need too much.
• Pop apples in the oven, and bake for approximately 45 minutes.*
• Eat hot, or cold. Pour over double cream and drizzle with raw honey, or eat straight. All variations are delicious.

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Notes

Note that this is only an approximate cooking time, and the size of your apples will determine exactly how long they’ll need to bake. Generally, once the skin starts to wrinkle slightly, and you can smell the baked apple fragrance, give the apples a gentle prod. If they’re tender, take them out. If still very firm, check back in another 10 minutes. If the skin is shriveled and the fruit has shrunk, you’ve left them too long.