Apples Baked in Sweet Wine with Dried Fruits, and Spices

I remember the baked apples my mother used to make all the time, back when the fruit we got in Athens was not wonderful as Fuji apples are today. Costas who grew up in Volos, remembers the exquisite heirloom apples from Pelion he loved. They have now disappeared as the trees are grafted to uniformly produce big red apples with little taste or aroma.

Fuji are grown in Greece the last few years and they are by far the best –and more expensive.  For this simple, plant-based (vegan) dessert I loosely follow my mothers recipe.

 

Unlike northern Europeans and Americans we don’t add butter to baked apples. I would serve these as dessert, but I know that some people would like to compliment game, poultry or hearty winter meats with baked apples.  

 

6-7 Servings (more…)

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Dried Fruit and Nuts for Sweetness and Strength

Nuts and dried fruit are associated with the Holiday Season and the New Year.

They are supposed to bring luck and help start the year with sweetness and strength, something we particularly need these difficult times…

 

English pudding is one of such festive cakes, but it is somewhat too complicated, with lots of strange ingredients, while the Boozy Fruitcake I propose is quite simple, provided you have help chopping dried fruit, and do not spare the cost of real, aged Cognac, Armagnac, or Grand Marnier needed to douse the cake. 

 

There is also our morning treat: the somewhat heavy yeasted Seedy, Fruity and Nutty Bread, close to a fruit-nut cake, with complex, bold flavor I always have sliced in the freezer. We toast pieces to enjoy with our coffee.

A variation of this bread can become a vassilopita —the New Year’s cake where the lucky coin is hidden.

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Boozy, Delicious Fruitcake

With lots of dried fruits and nuts, this dense cake, adapted from Amanda Hesser’s Good Fruit Cake, comes out perfect because it is baked in a very low oven for about 1 ½ hours. Apparently, this is the secret to making a fruit cake that is not hard and chewy… and of course lots of good liqueur and/or brandy!

This is a dense fruitcake, full of flavor, that should be thinly sliced and enjoyed in moderation, maybe accompanied by cream, mascarpone, or thick yogurt. 

 

 

Makes 2 Fruitcakes

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