Baked Apple
Baked Apple is a dish where apples are baked until their flesh softens. Typically, the core is removed and the cavity is filled. This dish is widespread throughout Europe and America. Besides being a popular dessert, often featuring common ingredients like sugar, syrup, various nuts, and dried fruits, and served with different types of cream, Baked Apple can also be a savory dish. For savory versions, it's often stuffed with minced pork or sausage and usually served as a side dish.
Apple: A Fruit Woven into History and Culture
Apples have been consumed for a long time, initially cultivated in Central Asia and Europe before being brought to the Americas by European settlers. They are consumed in various forms, including fresh, juiced, incorporated into savory dishes and desserts, and made into cider.
Apples are deeply connected to history and culture worldwide, especially in the Western world. As a fruit that can retain its freshness for a long time when stored in cool environments after harvest, apples became a popular food to store and consume during harsh winters when other produce was scarce.
From Hearth to Table: The Genesis of Baked Apple
The first instance of baking fruit globally is not clearly recorded, but it is believed to have occurred after the invention of the oven in 1557 CE. Ovens became common household appliances about 200 years later, after the Industrial Revolution. During this interim period, the first baked apple recipe was published by chef Robert May in his book The Accomplisht Cook in 1685 in England. This recipe describes peeling and coring apples, cutting them into four pieces, then baking them with red wine, lemon, candied orange, and sugar. These ingredients are still commonly found in Baked Apple fillings today.
Later, the recipe for baking whole apples, as we commonly know it today, appeared in the 1784 edition of The Art of Cookery, made plain and easy by Hannah Glasse. Unlike the first book which catered to haute cuisine, this cookbook aimed to be accessible to all social classes with simple language. Due to the book's popularity, this dish became widespread among the general public and was even mentioned in the famous novel Emma (1816) by Jane Austen.
Baked Apple in America and Europe
Baked Apple traveled to America along with European settlers and has remained a renowned dish in New England to this day. The first American version of the recipe was published in 1832 in The Cooks Oracle from Boston. After evolving through time and popularity, by 1940, the New England-style Baked Apple became distinctly associated with baking apples with apple syrup through various cookbooks published during that era.
In Europe, besides England where the recipe originated, Baked Apple is particularly prominent in Germany. It often features the Belle de Boskoop apple variety from the Netherlands and boasts a wide variety of filling ingredients such as chopped almonds, lemon juice, and various spices. As mentioned, apples were stored for winter, making Baked Apple a significant dish for Christmas festivities in Germany, typically served with vanilla custard.
Bulgaria also boasts its own famous Baked Apple, known as Pecheni Yabalki. Beyond common ingredients like cinnamon, brown sugar, and other flexible additions, what makes this dish unique is the inclusion of walnuts, a very important product in Bulgaria.
Food Preservation and Adaptations
When baking apples, they are also sometimes dried for preservation purposes. For example, in the county of Norfolk in England, there is a dish called Biffin, named after the apple variety used. This involves slowly drying whole apples while weighted down to flatten them into a cake-like shape, with straw added to help absorb moisture. When served, the dry, hard skin is peeled, and the core is removed, then the flesh is tossed with sugar and served with fresh cream.
