Baked Apples and Nuts.—For a half dozen large apples a good three-fourths cup of nut meats, butternuts, black walnuts or hickory nuts—will be required. Chop the meats fine and add a half cup of sugar. Core the apples and fill the centres with the nuts and sugar. Put in a rather deep pan, with a cupful of boiling water added, bag and bake. When tender remove carefully, place in a pretty dish, pour the juice over the apples, and crown with whipped cream or a meringue made from the whites of two eggs.
Raisin Apples.—A simple dessert enjoyed by the children consists of apples, cored and each cavity filled with sugar, nutmeg, a bit of butter and two or three raisins. Add one cupful of hot water, put in bag and bake in a slow oven. This may be varied occasionally by placing a meringue on the top of each apple when done, and cooking in a slow oven for seven minutes longer. Serve cold.
Baked Apple Sauce.—Peel and core firm apples of good flavor. Stick three cloves in each and put bits of mace and cinnamon in the core spaces. Put them in a well-buttered bag with two heaping cupfuls of sugar and a half cupful of water. Cook thirty minutes. Have the oven very hot at first, but slack heat after seven minutes. Lemon juice instead of water makes a richer flavored sauce. In that case add a half cupful more sugar at the outset.
Baked Bananas.—Peel and remove coarse threads, cut the pulp in halves lengthwise, dust with sugar and sprinkle with lemon juice, put in buttered bag and bake fifteen minutes, or roll the bananas in hot marmalade, then bake.
Stuffed Dates.—Select large, fine fruit, wash quickly and remove the pit. Put into the cavity a bit of crystallized ginger or citron, a nut or little candied peel, roll in confectioner's sugar and lay in lightly buttered bag left open at one end. Put in coolish oven to harden.
Baked Gooseberries.—Put into a greased bag a pint of "topped and tailed" gooseberries, add a cupful each sugar and water, seal and cook twenty minutes.
Baked Peaches.—Pour boiling water over the fruit, then rub off the skins and place in buttered bag without removing the pits. Add a teaspoonful of water for each peach, seal and bake about twenty minutes in a hot oven. When done, sweeten to taste and set aside to chill before using. Serve with sweet cream.
Baked Pears.—Select ripe, fine-flavored fruit, snip out the blossom end and stick in a clove. If the skin is thin, do not peel, but if tough, remove, put in buttered bag with a little water, seal and cook from fifteen to thirty minutes according to the quality of the fruit.
Baked Plums.—Put in buttered bag with a little water and cook twenty or twenty-five minutes. Sweeten to taste when done.