I kind of felt like Julie (of Julie and Julia fame) yesterday. I was home sick (legitimately!), but then realized that I had a recipe to make! I put off doing anything until the official end of the day, but still felt like maybe I shouldn’t be making any recipes to blog about (forget the part about cooking while I have a cold).
Of course, my foggy head probably didn’t help my recipe either. I’ve made a lot of Dorie’s apple recipes before. In fact I’d even say I often make her apple compote. But this isn’t one of the ones that I’d picked out. It seemed like a lot of fuss for 4 apples. Then there was the idea of heating up the oven for 2 hours. Clearly, I was over-thinking. Since I wasn’t at the top of my game, I decided that I should at least follow the recipe, though at the time I thought that with the orange, cardamom would have been a better choice. and I feel like you can never (ever!) go wrong with cinnamon. But I thought why not try Dorie’s combination?
The next thing was – cutting up those apples! I never peel a whole apple. I kind of think it must be a French thing, since I see it fairly often in Around My French Table. I did a bit of a comparison – including my typical “cut it in quarters first” method.
I thought it might make a difference, but as it turns out, it was probably about the same, though I did think that the quarters were easier to fit into my bowls, but no big drama there!
The apples get layered with a bit of butter and the sugar, spice, orange zest mixture. Then each ramekin is wrapped in plastic wrap, then foil.
Then the whole thing gets weighted down during baking. since I was going to use my countertop oven, I pulled out a neat thing that I remembered – a ceramic bread warming tile. It was perfect and the whole thing would fit in the oven. Then the whole things gets baked for about 2 hours and then allowed to cool – still weighted down.
I was surprised at how juicy the apples were after that amount of time. I kind of expected something a little different. More compressed. The combination was tasty though. I don’t know, however, if it was worth the extra effort – it would have made a fine baked apple. Or a different flavor combination for the compote. But that’s just me. And perhaps mine just didn’t work they way that they were supposed to. Might have been because of using the smaller oven too – don’t really know. But it was pretty tasty in any event!
dulceshome 
I’m not sure any of us really knows how these are to turn out or look like. I was all over the Internet just trying to figure out how to slice the apples. You were brilliant to do quarters. I honestly don’t see why we needed to slice them so thin to just cram them together. Must be a French fettish. I exchanged ginger for cinnamon, dropped the coriander, but mixed orange zest into the sugar/cinnamon mixture. This dessert was good, not worthy of the effort, I think. Hopefully, you will continue to feel better each day. The whole country seems to have one big flu bug right now. It’s nasty stuff. Take care.
It was definitely a tasty dessert, a very sweet surprise! Have a nice weekend!
I was expecting apple sauce and was really surprised at the results. Yours look great.
I was quite delighted with the results of this dish, like Nana, I was also expecting applesauce. Yours look delicious!
Your dessert looks delicious. Sorry you’ve not been well, hope you are feeling better today. Everywhere I go…for the past month…seems like everyone is sick. They should all stay home and do a little baking! The plastic wrap caused mine to fail, but the idea is good…I did get a photo when I thought all the plastic had been picked out, but upon tasting, I got more melted plastic in my taste…so, of course, my family did not enjoy this one.
Yeah, we had a nasty virus, too…hope you’re on the mend! These were quite tasty, but I agree, a baked apple is just as good!
Feel better soon!
Hope you’re feeling better – a nice, tasty dessert always goes a long way towards that!
Hope you are feeling better!
I definitely had no idea what to expect for this one.
But it was tasty!
It looks similar to mine. Who knows if either of us did it right. When a cookbook has SOME recipes, you come to expect a picture. It seems like ALL the recipes should be shown. Definitely might have helped with this. I did like the texture of this, different from a baked apple. I like your idea of cardamom (a favorite of mine) with the orange. Hope you are recuperate for the new week ahead. Have a good one.
I’m impressed that you did this while you were under the weather – I’m never up for much when I’m sick. We enjoyed this, but there was certainly a lot of confusion!
I too felt like it seemed like a lot of fuss for 4 apples too but what a delicious fuss it was! and it didnt take long to put together either!
These were so amazingly good that I really wish I had made more. For just four apples, and four hours in the oven, it did seem like a lot of work. But well worth the effort. Hope you are feeling better!
Your apples look great!
I know what you mean about motivating yourself to get things done when you feel unwell, good work!