Baked Apples Anywhere

A lot of people associate apples with the fall, but the truth is, I love apples year-round. I also love foods that are versatile. Since we travel, and particularly camp, it is nice to have foods that we can grab from home and bake/eat at the campground. Apples fit this bill.

My favorite way to eat an apple is baked. When I think of baked apples, I usually think of them sliced and smothered with brown sugar, cinnamon, and maybe some honey. All too often, I forget about stuffing apples and baking them whole.

A few years ago, we went camping with some friends who baked us each an apple stuffed with nuts, marshmallows, and chocolate chips. The apples were delicious. Jackson mentioned the apples to me about a week ago. Since he is a picky eater, I wanted to make sure I made them for our upcoming camping trip.

It just so happened that on this trip, we were camping with the same friends who initially made us the apples. I began thinking, if we can stuff an apple with chocolate, marshmallows, and nuts, what can’t you stuff an apple with? I have hosted events where I had potato bars, ice cream bars, and hot chocolate bars, so why not an apple bar? I then began thinking about all of the toppings that you can stuff apples with. Some toppings that I came up with include:

Butter… of course

Cinnamon

Brown sugar

Honey

Chocolate chips

Caramel chips

Heath bits (brickle)

Marshmallows

Milk Duds

Cookie dough

Red Hots

Reeses

Nuts

Peanut butter

Cheese

Allspice

Nutmeg

Anything you want that will melt well

Baked Apples Anywhere

Large Apples (Gala works great for this recipe)

Unsalted butter- cut into pats

Whatever toppings that your heart desires

Aluminum foil

Permanent marker (if you are stuffing apples with different fillings)

Sheet pan

Wash, dry, and core the apples. You can use an apple corer, but I did not have one in the camper so I used a knife to cut my holes and a spoon to dig out the seeds and core. The apples will begin to oxidize quickly because they are exposed to oxygen, so be ready to stuff the apples right away. I begin by placing a pat of butter in the apples so that they soften while baking. Then stuff them with your favorite treats.

After you stuff the apples, cover them in aluminum foil. Mark the aluminum foil on each apple to indicate how the apples are stuffed. Melted cinnamon looks an awful lot like melted chocolate, so I don’t want anyone to take a bite and receive a surprise.

While camping, we cook the apples in the campfire. The apples cook better with indirect heat. Take the wrapped apples and place them right side up next to the fire in the fire pit. Cook the apples for an hour.  

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I also cooked apples recently at home in my oven. I cooked the apples for 30 minutes at 500 degrees. Place the foiled apples onto a sheet pan or directly onto the oven racks with a sheet pan below. The apples cut like lava cakes with the delicious stuffing flowing out.

A note about using cookie dough… if you want a cookie dough mixture inside your apple, be sure to stuff the dough pretty well into the apple if cooking on the campfire. While camping, the cookie dough on the top of the apples burned while the ones with the cookie dough placed snugly within the apple came out delicious. We hope you enjoy!

  Do you have a favorite way to eat apples? We would love to hear about it! Please drop us a line in the comment section below!