One of the dishes in our upcoming Apple Box is wobbly, sweet, eat-with-a-spoon, kind of ugly, and so yummy. It’s Baked Apples. We used to make them every morning at the original Harvard Square restaurant. It would fill Holyoke Street with the smell of brown sugar and cinnamon and the first apples of fall. Turns out their history in Harvard Square is even older than our restaurant – our favorite former grocery store owner Tony Russo remembered going to diners in Harvard Square for them when he was a kid.

Along with everything you need to make baked apples, the Apple Box has my favorite Ploughman’s Lunch spread, a creamy Turnip Apple soup, and an Apple Carrot salad. Of course all the apples are from our friend Ed at Autumn Hills Orchard in Groton.

This box will be distributed twice, once on 9/22 and once on 9/29. If you don’t live within 30 miles of us and can’t get the box, here’s how to make Baked Apples:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Wash apples (we like using Fuji, Gala, or Cortland).

Sprinkle a bit of cinnamon at the bottom of a baking dish.

Core the apples and stand them up in the baking dish.

Fill centers with brown sugar and a small pat of butter.

Add about a half-inch of water to the baking dish, around the apples.

Bake, basting every 20 minutes or so with the water, until apples are very soft (approx. 50 – 75 minutes for Cortlands — 75 – 90 minutes for Fujis or Galas).

Serve warm or at room temperature. Should be soft enough to be eaten with a spoon.