Tuscan Baked Apples {Boffoli}

Tuscan Baked Apples {Boffoli} are stuffed with delicious ingredients and baked to a soft, rustic finish. Topped with sweetened mascarpone, they are a simple, special dessert from new cookbook Autentico, Cooking Italian the Authentic Way.Last week on a snowy morning I curled up in an overstuffed chair next to a roaring fire and cracked open Autentico: Cooking Italian, the Authentic Way by Rolando Beramendi. The welcoming white cover with a white plate of Broken Fresh Tomato Halves; relaxed ripe tomatoes with olive oil, capers with crusty bread left me feeling I was on vacation.

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“Rolando Beramendi simply exudes enthusiasm” starts the cookbook’s forward by Ina Garten. No doubt, when you read his background. He graduated from UC Davis and after making a meal for friends in the Italian Alps for Christmas, the guests asked his help to find authentic importers of Italian ingredients. Inquiries met with why it couldn’t be done lead Beramendi to start his own Italian food import company: Manicaretti.

It seems a natural follow on to pen a cookbook featuring authentic Italian recipes covering the gamut: a primer on ingredients, how to set up an authentic Italian pantry, basic recipe that are foundational to Italian cuisine, appetizers to dessert with exciting main dishes in between.

For those loving Italian cuisine this is your chance to become immersed, to really learn the authentic way of making the fresh beautiful recipes that so often are adapted outside of what is truly and authentically Italian. The book includes a set of resources to find authentic ingredients as well.

This book is gorgeous. The recipes are simple, relying on the quality of the ingredients to create vibrant, wholesome food. It feels transporting to flip through it, a departure more impactful than thumbing through a cookbook for a dinner recipe. `

I wanted to share a recipe from the cookbook that would be cozy for the season and Tuscan Baked Apples (Boffoli) jumped off the page. It’s an easy recipe, and one that is full of flavor. Semi cored apples are filled with sugar, golden raisins, pine nuts, topped with butter and drizzled with dessert wine for cooking. The final baked apples are soft and rustic, topped with mascarpone. They are simple, sophisticated and special.

The intention of Autentico is to encourage making authentic Italian recipes with authentic Italian recipes. The one difficulty I can see is that not all ingredients are readily available and not all home cooks will want to order ingredients online. My personal feeling is that finding a viable substitute which holds true to the flavor profile and intention of the recipe, is a good solution to enjoy the recipe even if not identical to the cookbook.

This exact point is addressed in a ‘disclaimer’ early in the cookbook: “…this book has been written with the very Italian philosophy of “it is what it is…and that’s how it will be.” Options, substitutions, and other variations within each recipe have been (mostly) kept aside. In the event that the reader should wish to modify, add, or make any other kind of maneuvers in the kitchen, so long as these choices are made with respect to each and every one of the ingredients in the recipe and those which are being added or deleted, and with respect to the original dish and the actual diners, then let them take place.”

I spent some time wih the wine guy at my favorite local liquor store when buying the Vin Santo for the Tuscan Baked Apples recipe. Vin Santo is a late harvest Italian dessert wine that I’d say tastes similar to a light, blonde port. It can be difficult to find and is expensive. Though there isn’t an exact substitution, using a light Muscat, Sauternes or Crème Sherry would work. They aren’t exact replacements but close enough to allow making the dish with integrity to the recipe.

How to make Tuscan Baked Apples {Boffoli}:

Recipe

Tuscan Baked Apples {Boffoli}

"Eating boffoli reminds me of eating the filling of an apple strudel. Carla Bani, the Tuscan wineproducer at the incredible fifteenth-century renaissance villa Villa Vingamaggio—where Much Ado About Nothing was filmed and where it’s said the “Mona Lisa” was painted by Leonardo daVinci—shared this recipe with me. Baking apples are cored, filled with Demerara sugar, pine nuts, and raisins, and topped with vin santo, an amber-colored dessert wine from Toscano, before being roasted until tender, tender, tender. The skins on the apples burst or boff (blow up) and are served with a few spoonfuls of vin santo–infused mascarpone." - Rolando Beramendi, 'Autentico'

5 from 8 votes

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Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Italian

Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes minutes

Servings: 4

Calories: 324kcal

Author: Toni Dash

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Ingredients

• ▢ 2 tablespoons (56 g) Unsalted Butter plus more for the baking dish
• ▢ 4 Tart Green Apples (such as Granny Smith)
• ▢ 4 teaspoons (32 g) Demerara Sugar
• ▢ 2 teaspoons (8 g) Italian Pine Nuts
• ▢ 2 teaspoons (12 g) Flame or Golden Raisins
• ▢ 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (280 ml | 280 g) Vin Santo
• ▢ 1/2 cup (113 g) Mascarpone

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Butter a 7 x 10- inch baking dish (it should be large enough to hold the apples without touching). Use a paring knife or apple corer to cut about two-thirds of the way into each apple. (The opening should be 1 inch wide.) 
• Spoon ½ teaspoon of the sugar into each hole, followed by ½ teaspoon of the pine nuts, then ½ teaspoon of the raisins. Cut the butter into four pieces and set one piece on the top of the filling in each apple. Pour some vin santo into the cavities and on the bottom of the baking dish, reserving 2 tablespoons of the wine for the mascarpone. Sprinkle the remaining sugar over the apples. Bake until the apple skins have burst and the sugars have been caramelized, and the apples can be pierced easily with a knife, about 45 minutes.
• While the apples bake, in a medium bowl, whisk together the mascarpone and the remaining 2 tablespoons vin santo.
• Serve the apples warm or at room temperature, topped with a heaping spoonful of mascarpone and a drizzle of the caramelized wine from the baking dish.

Notes

From Autentico, copyright 2017 by Rolando Beramendi, reprinted with permission of St. Martin’s Press.

Nutrition

Calories: 324kcal | Carbohydrates: 32g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 21g | Saturated Fat: 12g | Cholesterol: 45mg | Sodium: 19mg | Potassium: 227mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 25g | Vitamin A: 695IU | Vitamin C: 8.3mg | Calcium: 52mg | Iron: 0.4mg

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Disclosure: I was provided a copy of Autentico for the purposes of this review. All opinions are my own.