Cranberry Butter Rum Apples Baked in Cider

It’s apple harvest time, and our county has some of the best in the world! We enjoy apples fresh from the tree, applesauce, apple muffins, apple cakes and bread. Baked apples are a special treat, and in our home they hold lots of memories of making them together.

Of course, there are so many ways to make baked apples, lots of different fillings and sweeteners. Use whatever nut you like, or omit them. No cranberries? Use raisins, or dried cherries.

The great apple baking test

The kids and I recently baked up a big batch of a dozen different types of apples to see which ones we liked the best, and good old standbys of Fortune, Empire, and Jonathan won hands down. These apples absorbed the flavor of everything else, and yet kept their pronounced apple flavor and shape, both important.

We used just a touch of spice in these…