Roasted apples like my mom used to make

A perfect dessert for Mother’s Day

As Mother’s Day is coming up, I wanted to share with you a recipe that reminds me of MY mother. I was born in Asturias in the north of Spain. Apples grow everywhere around there, and are often made into sidra—Asturian-style cider. Sidra is incredibly popular in that part of Spain, and we drink it in a very special way…cider pourers called escanciadors will pour cider from a bottle held above their heads, which is meant to aerate the cider and give it the slightest bit of effervescence…it’s a religious experience.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today! These manzanas asadas—baked apples—remind me of my mother…it was a dessert we had a lot growing up, she would make it for me and my brothers, filling the house with the best smells of apples and cinnamon. I know I’ve told you about my mom and apples before—remember that she introduced me to blue cheese with apples? 

For this recipe, you can use whichever apples you like, but I prefer Gold Rush or Golden Delicious. And however many you can fit comfortably into a roasting pan is the exact right number of apples—you want enough in the dish to hold the others up, so that as they soften in the oven they don’t all fall over! Everything goes together perfectly…the sweet/tart of the apple, the warm spice of the cinnamon, and the richness of the butter, combined with a wonderful bath of Cognac and honey…I might even want to jump in and take a bath with the apples!

This dessert comes together quickly and you can make it ahead of time, so all you have to do is put it in the oven when you’re having dinner, and it will fill your kitchen with the beautiful smells like I grew up with—your guests might say, Apples? In May? And you can respond…José told me to do it! 

My mother never did, but you could serve the apples with vanilla ice cream…I think that would be pretty delicious. And you could make it for breakfast, and you could still serve it with ice cream. The only rule on Mother’s Day is to make Mom happy, and if she wants ice cream for breakfast, she gets ice cream for breakfast.

Manzanas Asadas
Roasted Apples