Baked Apples

I'm finally starting to come to terms with something that I have felt bad for for a long time: I don't like to bake. There I said it. Even if it is in small print. I'm finally realizing that it's okay to not like to bake and own it.

I think the greatest source of guilt comes from the fact that my mom is a fabulous baker. I grew up loving the holidays, to a major extent, because of the goodies my mom would bake. She would turn on the Christmas music and start baking. She gives many of her goodies away, but there's always a little left over for the kids. :) So many of our family traditions are centered around special food, and I can't always duplicate it, and my kids are missing out! Perhaps I need more practice, but I'm too impatient to practice.

Cheryl is a fabulous baker also. She makes some of the best rolls in the world, and she bakes them quite often. Then she turns some of the dough into cinnamon rolls. I love cinnamon rolls....

I hate baking because it makes a huge mess, and then I'm hardly ever satisfied with what I just made, and then I end up eating most of it, because I went to all the effort, and someone better eat it!!!! Then you gain weight on something that wasn't all that tasty anyway. To be fair, my kids and husband will eat what I bake and like it pretty well, but I somehow end up eating too much of it even though it's not up to snuff.

So finally to the owning it part. I have decided that I will bake things that are easy to bake! Like those delicious three ingredient chocolate chip pumpkin cookies. Those are easy and tasty enough to be worth the effort. And like baked apples. I just tried these making these recently. So easy and so good, like apple pie, without worrying about a crust. All you have to do is:

Core some apples. (The only really tricky part is not piercing the bottom)

Peel away a little peel around the well you created.

Fill them with a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, chopped pecans, and cornstarch (for thickness).

Top with a dab of butter. (I forgot this part and they still turned out well).

Get the sized baking dish needed for number of apples. Fill the bottom with just enough water to cover. Place apples in pan. Bake at 350 for 30min give or take depending on size and hardness of apples. (Mine were small and took 30 min).
Top with vanilla ice cream and enjoy warm!

Unfortunately, my kids didn't totally go for this recipe, so I need more EASY and LOW mess baking recipes that taste a little better than out of the box. Do you guys know any????

And do you guys have holiday traditions that don't center around food? I know my family does have some, but I want more ideas. We need to start some personal family holiday traditions!