The Baked Apple Dessert... Revived

I originally intended to make this variation on the baked apple this weekend, but I just couldn't wait any more. I found a cool idea on a BBQ website and decided to play with it a bit. Basically instead of the standard raisin (or whatever) filling, I put in a Snickers bar. I know, I know, that probably sounds pretty weird. Bear with me here.

So on the way home from the shop, I stopped off at the grocery store and picked up a few Fuji apples and a couple of Snickers bars. You can use whatever you like, but this tends to come out better with a more firm apple. I had all the other ingredients at home already, so it worked out nicely.


I peeled the apples, then removed the core with a paring knife and a melon baller. Then I took my Snickers bar, cut it in half, and inserted it into the cavity I'd created with the melon baller. I took the other half of the Snickers and shaved off some little pieces to help plug up the gaps between the walls of the "apple cup" and the piece of candy bar already inside. Once I had jammed all the little Snickers shards in there, it looked something like this...

About halfway through the process

So far, this process had taken me all of about 10 minutes to prep three apples. Pretty easy so far, right? Anyway, next I shook some cinnamon onto the outer flesh of the apple and rubbed it around so it had a light, even coating. All that was left to do was top it off with some brown sugar, wrap, and pop it in the oven. (I used the common store-variety brown sugar, but I think that the darker type might even be better. Maybe I'll try that next time.) I used a tablespoon and made a brown sugar "cap" over the top of the hole and packed it down. 

I wrapped the apples tightly in foil, placed them in a baking pan, and put them into the oven at 250 degrees. I guessed the bake time would be right about 2 hours but, in the interest of not burning the apples, I decided to check them at the 90 minute mark. My thinking was that the foil would help retain moisture and that I could drizzle whatever juices might accumulate in the pan over the top of the apples before serving.

I suppose I could have cooked this dish in the barbecue, keeping with the theme of the dishes I've made up to this point. It just seemed like a lot of unnecessary trouble to fire up the smoker or a light bunch of charcoal in the Weber kettle grill just to cook three apples. Had I been grilling some other dish at the same time, I probably would have done that. But in this case, it was just easier to use the oven -- and easy, after all, is the whole point of this dessert. 

...Ninety minutes came and went, and not nearly fast enough! I wanted dessert! I pulled the apples out, opened up the foil and checked how they were coming along. Everything looked good, but I felt like a bit more time baking would be beneficial. Back into the oven for another 20 minutes or so...

And after what seemed like an eternity, particularly for a hungry guy with a sweet-tooth, the baked apples were ready! I let them rest another ten minutes in their foil wrapping to retain juices, then served with vanilla bean ice cream. It looked just like I had hoped and the texture seemed just right. Success!

Voila! Random, but good!