There's something about a cold snap that begs for baked apples. Baked apples with ice cream, pecans, brown sugar... and gooey, toasted marshmallow melting on your tongue.

Go ahead, tell me how bad you want it!

When my friend Steve Harsin visited me this fall to help catalog my dad's library, he shared his mother's baked apple recipe with me, which involved plugging the cored fruit with a marshmallow, before you pop it in the oven. It's a brilliant improvisation on the old Betty Crocker standby.

I stuffed the apples with a flourish. "It's like a marshmallow buttplug!"

Steve said: "If my mother heard that, she would die."

Baked apples are easy-peasy to prepare, and will blow your Thanksgiving guests' minds. People have forgotten the tasty genius of a basic baked apple, and they'll worship you for reminding them of what's right and good in the world.

Choose some apples that are a little tart. You really can't go wrong as long as they're crisp and flavorful.

Wash and core apples with a cheap but effective APPLE CORER. It works a lot faster than a paring knife.

Don't quite pierce the bottom of the apple; just drill down to about the last quarter inch. Your opening needs to be almost an inch wide.

Place in baking dish. Fill the centers of each apple with 1-2 tablespoons of brown sugar, a teaspoon of walnuts or pecans, 1 tsp. of butter, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. I actually don't measure anything in this recipe myself, I just use my fingers and approximate!



I've given you the basic ingredients... but you could substitute or add anything you think tastes good with apples.

For the final touch, take a marshmallow and rudely stuff it in the top of each apple, pushing down the other ingredients into the cored hole. It doesn't matter that the marshmallow pooches out at the top— baked apples are supposed to be messy.

Fill your baking pan with about 1/4" of water, so the apples are sitting in a shallow bath.

Bake uncovered in a 375 degree oven until tender when pierced with a fork. Time varies with apple size, but it's about 30-40 min. Yum yum yum! Serve with ice cream or whipped cream, like an apple sundae.

Photo from Simple Recipes.