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baked apples

* adapted from a bon appétit (November 2000) recipe

ingredients:

2 7- to 8-ounce Golden Delicious apples
2 tablespoons toffee bits (I cut up some caramels)
1 tablespoon coffee liqueur
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 cup apple cider
1 tablespoons mild-flavored (light) molasses
1/2 tablespoon sugar
dash teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Vanilla ice cream

instructions

1.Preheat oven to 350°F. Peel skin off top third of each apple. Using small melon baller, scoop out stem and core, leaving bottom intact.

2. Stand apples in 9 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish. Place 1/2 of toffee bits around apples in dish. Divide remaining bits among cavities of apples. Add 1/2 tablespoon bourbon and 1/2 tablespoon butter to cavity of each apple.

3. Whisk cider, molasses, sugar, ginger and cinnamon in bowl; spoon over and around apples.

4. Bake apples until tender, basting often with pan juices, about 1 hour 20 minutes. Transfer apples to bowls or plates.

5. Pour juices from dish into small saucepan. Boil juices until thick enough to coat spoon, about 6 minutes. Spoon sauce over apples. Serve apples warm with vanilla ice cream.

Changes, hints, tips and thoughts for this recipe:

• this recipe needed very few changes -- I used coffee liqueur instead of brandy for the sauce because I prefer a coffee taste to the taste of brandy with desserts -- it was really yummy.

• the skin on the apples wasn't that great -- a tad bit rubbery and not what I would have liked...I have no idea how to fix that though.