Fall break is nearly here and all of us Notre Dame students are about to have as much free time as we are ever allowed to have in a semester. If you’re leaving campus, you’re probably as excited about a week away from the dining halls as you are about getting enough sleep—it’s not that the dining halls are terrible, per se, but we all know there’s nothing quite like being able to eat food that wasn’t mass produced once you’re home. If you’re like me, you’re probably equally excited about the opportunity to bake and cook your own food once again (it’s not a luxury I always enjoy, but after a couple months at school I learn to miss it).
I’ve always preferred baking to cooking. Partially because the end result is usually sweet and I’ve always had a crazy sweet tooth. As it is fall (or autumn if you want to be picky), I’ve had a strong desire to bake with apples.
There’s just something about the weather getting colder and the leaves changing color that makes me want to go apple picking—and then whip up some baked apple treats.
The first step to making any good baked apple treats is choosing your apples. Of course, since I love eating honeycrisp apples all by themselves, I tend to bake with Macintosh or Jonagold apples. I try to stay away from anything too sweet as I think it can easily overwhelm the flavor of whatever I’m actually trying to make.
Grocery shopping can be lots of fun if you know what you’re doing and you’re making something you’re excited about. It is especially fun if you can work apple picking into your day. If you’re staying on campus for fall break, there are several good apple picking farms around to choose from (my dorm recently took a trip to Garwood Farms in La Porte).
After you’ve got your apples, it’s time to choose what to bake. I’ve listed four of my favorites here, but of course, there’s tons of other options.
1. Apple Oatmeal Muffins
My roommate and I tried this recipe for the first time this weekend. It turned out great. The muffins are great for a morning or a late-night snack and smell amazing while you bake them. The apples add a nice sweet touch to the cinnamon and oats but don’t overwhelm the overall flavor. We added some nutmeg as well because nothing goes better with apple treats than nutmeg and cinnamon. We doubled the recipe and ended up with twice as many as we expected, but they were small and tasty and didn’t end up lasting us very long.
2. Apple Turnovers
I’m linking an official recipe here but my roommate and I made up our own this weekend during our baking extravaganza. We used puff pastry, the shredded apples from the muffins above, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar. We cut the puff pastry into squares, put some of the apple mixture inside each of them and then brushed some milk along the top to prevent burning. For the second and third batches, we sprinkled some sugar on top just to increase the sweetness. We then baked them until they were slightly crispy on top, which took about 15-20 minutes. It was super easy and ended up being incredibly delicious.
3. Apple Crisp
One of the hardest things about living on campus is the lack of a real grocery store. The Huddle doesn’t have much and what it does have is usually not enough to do any hardcore baking. However, this is one recipe that the Huddle has almost all the ingredients for (if you can find cinnamon, it is better. But it works just fine without). I’d never really considered using cake mix in baked goods aside from actual cake but it turned out to be one of the best things I’ve tried since starting college.
4. Baked apples
If you’ve still got apples left over, apples baked with cinnamon, butter and sugar are pretty good by themselves. This recipe cooks them in the oven but it is possible to heat up the mixture in a microwave as well (just don’t put them in for too long without checking on them!). It’s simple, yet delicious—though this is one recipe that won’t keep for very long after you’ve made it.
Feel free to experiment with your own ideas and add or subtract according to your own tastes. Good luck with all your apple baking this fall!
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