Baked Apples with Dates and Apricots

from “Jewish Cooking for All Seasons” by Laura Frankel
Yield: 6 servings

1/2 cup chopped pitted dates
1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses
3 tablespoons best-quality honey
3/4 cup sweet white wine, such as Riesling
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
6 large, firm apples, cored, preferably Pink Lady or Rome Beauty

1. Preheat oven to 300°F.
2. Pulse dates and apricots in
   a food processor 10 to 12 times, until fruits are chopped and clumping
   together. You don’t want them to form a smooth paste. Transfer fruit to
   a bowl and stir in pomegranate molasses, honey, 1/4 cup of the wine,
   and cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.
3. Stuff mixture into cored
   apples. You should have enough stuffing to generously stuff apples and
   have some stuffing “pop” out of top of apples (I love this part, as it
   gets crispy on top).
4. Place apples in a baking dish and pour
   remaining 1/2 cup wine around apples. Bake apples until they are soft
   and fairly wrinkly, 30 to 45 minutes. Occasionally, spoon some of the
   wine and juices onto the apples so they do not dry out.
5. Serve apples warm or at room temperature with some of the cooking juice spooned around the apples.

Notes: Apples can be baked 4 hours ahead and kept loosely covered at
room temperature. Pomegranate molasses (also called “paste”) can be
found in Middle Eastern markets or at www.sadaf.com.