Summer is not “officially” over, I know, but apple season has kicked off and we have to make the most out of them! As long as I am not using anything pumpkin as an ingredient, I won’t be blamed for embracing autumn a few weeks in advance, right? This makes me interestingly aware that, before I realize it, it will soon be the end of 2017! Hello 31/12/2016’s resolutions, where have you been? We were supposed to be good this year. Oh well!

My editorial calendar asked me to post this recipe last week but life got very busy and we went to Florence with Zayd for our friends’ wedding. The whole trip was such a treat. I mean give me Italian food and I am the happiest so when you added it to a beautifully charming city, a wonderful weather and too much fun, life does feel very good. So sorry for not posting this last week, I was having too much fun, can you forgive me?

These baked apples are so easy to prepare, they have the perfect balance of sweetness, fruitiness and crunchiness. It really is one of my favourite things to serve after an indulgent meal because the combination of apples, ground almond and raisins feels very comforting but not too heavy at the same time.

I started baking apples a few years ago on a rainy day when I was craving apple pie but I didn’t have the ingredients to make any kind of pastry. So I asked my friend Google for baked apples recipes and I found a very good one on Jamie Oliver’s website. I pumped it up a little bit with ground almonds and orange blossom water and bim-bam-boum, it became a classic in my recipe collection.

Baked stuffed apples with almonds, raisins and orange blossom

INGREDIENTS

4 large cooking apples
50g unsalted butter
50g brown sugar
3 tablespoons raisins
1 teaspoon orange blossom water
50g ground almonds
2 tablespoons honey
Vanilla ice cream to serve

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 180 C/ 350 F. Remove the core from the apples with a sharp knife or an apple corer and transfer them to a roasting tin.

• Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat, add in the sugar, raisins and orange blossom and stir until the sugar is melted, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the ground almonds until well combined.

• Stuff the apples with the almonds and raisins mixture. If there’s any mixture left, scatter it around the apples. Drizzle the apples with the honey and bake in the oven until the apples are baked and soft, about 20 minutes. Serve immediately with vanilla ice cream.