Baked Apples Stuffed With Raisins

Ingredients:

6 large apples
Seeded raisins
6 tablespoons brown sugar
6 tablespoons water
1 cup whipped cream (optional)

Makes 6 servings.


Preparation:
  • Wash the apples. With an apple corer or paring knife, remove the core from each and place them in a glass baking dish or earthenware.
  • Wash the seeded raisins and place 6 to 8 of them and 1 level tablespoon of brown sugar in each core. Pour the water around the apples.
  • Bake in a hot oven (400º F or 205º C) until tender. During baking, occasionally "baste" the apples, _i.e._ take spoonfuls of the water from around the apples and pour it on the top of them.
  • Serve warm or cold and decorated with whipped cream if desired.

NOTE: The time for baking apples varies with the size of apple and the kind of the apple. From 20 to 35 minutes is usually required.
 

TIP: Test the apples for sufficient baking with a fork or skewer. 



Real Cooking
Did You Know?
An essential oil is a concentrated, hydrophobic liquid containing volatile aroma compounds from plants. Essential oils are also known as volatile or ethereal oils, or simply as the "oil of" the plant from which they were extracted, such as oil of clove. An oil is "essential" in the sense that it carries a distinctive scent, or essence, of the plant. Essential oils do not as a group need to have any specific chemical properties in common, beyond conveying characteristic fragrances. They are not to be confused with essential fatty acids.

Essential oils are generally extracted by distillation. Other processes include expression, or solvent extraction. They are used in perfumes, cosmetics and bath products, for flavoring food and drink, and for scenting incense and household cleaning products.

Interest in essential oils has revived in recent decades with the popularity of aromatherapy, a branch of alternative medicine which claims that the specific aromas carried by essential oils have curative effects. Oils are volatilized or diluted in a carrier oil and used in massage, diffused in the air by a nebulizer or by heating over a candle flame, or burned as incense, for example.