Baked Apple Bites

Have you ever had a baked apple?  With all the cinnamon, brown sugar, oats and butter stuffed in an apple and baked?  They are wonderful.  This is just a smaller version of them, one I can send to school with my son in his lunch.  🙂

Baked Apple Bites
2 green apples, washed, cored and grated
1 cup oats
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
a dash ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350.

Mix everything together and pack into muffin cups that have been sprayed with non stick spray.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Let cool and eat.  🙂
I baked mine in silicone mini muffin cups, if you use a larger size muffin pan you’ll need to add 10 minutes or so on the cooking time.

Note: if you want to make the original baked apples combine everything but the grated apples and lemon juice and pack into washed apples that you have cut the top off and scooped out the middle.  You can chop up the apple that you scooped out (no seeds or core) and mix it with the oat mixture (and the lemon juice).  Set the apples upright in a baking dish and put the tops back on the apples.  Bake for 30-45 minutes or until the apples start to soften.  Top with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Apple Pie Braid

I ran across a recipe for apple bread braid and it looked tasty but alas, I’m really bad at making bread. I decided to make it with pie crust (another thing I’m horrible at making but fortunately I can buy it ready to go). If you are good with bread you can try this that way though you’ll need to keep an eye on it for time as I’m not sure how long it’ll take.

Apple Pie Braid
4 granny smith apples
1/2 cup raisins or craisins
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon apple pie spice
1 refrigerator pie crust
1 egg for egg wash
1 tablespoon sugar (coarse or raw sugar would be best)

Preheat oven to 375. Wash, core and dice apples and place in a saute pan with the butter and raisins/craisins. Saute on medium heat until apples start to soften up a little bit. Add spices and brown sugar and saute a couple more minutes until the sauce starts thickening up. Take off heat and let cool down to room temp.

Roll out pie crust until it’s in a large oval shape (I just rolled mine out in one direction a couple times and it went from circular to the perfect shape). Cut pretty deep strips into the pie crust (deeper than mine in the picture). Once filling is cool pour onto pie crust and start folding the strips over alternating sides. Seal up the top and bottom with a little egg wash. Then egg wash the entire pouch and sprinkle the sugar over it. Bake for 45 minutes or until the pie crust is shiny and golden brown. Let cool and cut, serve with some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream or just by itself. YUM!