In honor of my Grandma...

My Grandma Melba was amazing. She was sweet and wonderful and fun and she put up with my Grandpa (hehe!). One of the things I remember most about her were her treats - checkerboard cake, snickerdoodles, and apple nothin'.

Oh yes, APPLE. NOTHIN'.

So, in honor of her, I made apple nothin' for our Apple Party yesterday (which also happened to be the 4 year anniversary of her passing). It was a sweet (literally) way to remember her while spending time with family.

But, in Pinterest fasion, I couldn't just leave it as the normal apple nothin' we all love so much. I had to see if I could improve upon it and make it fantastic to look at as well as eat...

So I did.

Apple Nothin' baked *INSIDE* the cored out apples...wow.

I found this website through Pinterest, and simply swapped out the pie crust for the crumble topping of apple nothin'. And it was fabulous.

And now, since I know you want to try it for yourself...here ya go -

Ingredients:
6 Apples (It really depends on how many you want to eat...you could technically make just one I suppose! I made 5, and had topping left over, so I would suggest 6 for the amount of topping. I used GrannySmith because they seem to work best for baking.)
Cinnamon-sugar (I keep a little bowl of this on hand for recipes like this and morning toast...just mix to your taste preference!)
1 stick butter (room temperature)
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350*. Find your 8x8 pan and have it ready to go for the apples (I always forget this step, and have to scramble for the pan with my hands covered in food, so I'm reminding you ;-))
2. Cut the top off your apples and discard. Carve out the inside of the apples with a knife or melon baller. (I didn't need the apple filling to be pretty, so the half circle scoops I got turned out just fine.)
3. Put the apple pieces into a bowl and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.
4. Refill your scooped out apples with the cinnamon sugar pieces.
5. Mix the butter, sugar and flour together in a bowl. (Grandma Melba always used her hands for this part...so I do, too. I think it makes a difference!)
6. Cover the tops of your filled apples with the crumble topping. Place in the 8x8 pan.
7. Add enough water to the pan to just cover the bottom of the pan. Cover with foil.
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Then remove the foil and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes.

At this point, the apples were done, but the topping wasn't as crispy brown as I like it. So I turned on my broiler for about 5 minutes and let them brown up. Yum.

They were so cute!! And smelled just like baked apples *AND* apple nothin'. (Not surprising, really, since that's what they were...but they smelled fantastic.)

And then I cut into one...

How delicious does that look?? It was wonderful. It would have been better with vanilla ice cream and some caramel sauce (apple nothin' is always better with vanilla ice cream, and vanilla ice cream is always better with caramel....sooo....next time!), but it was very yummy.

Now I have to wonder what else I could cook inside an apple...peach cobbler? Cherry pie? Berry "tarts"??

Oh, fall, you are so delicious.