Cardamon Apple Pots

Photo: MVL

This all started at Pop Shelf. If you don’t have one in your town, I feel very sad for you. It’s like being at the scene of a very clean, well-faced car accident between a European dollar store, an American dollar store, and a Michaels. Anyway, in the kitchen section they had these cute little cast iron pots. They were just $5 ea., so before I knew it we had eight in our basket. What would we make in them? No idea! Not important! Get pots now! Figure out later!

The first thing we tried was a French recipe for baked apples – Pommes Au Four. Caramelized sugar over sliced, sweet Pink Lady apples, more sugar between each apple layer, then more sugar on top. It was like eating a melted candied apple. Gross.

Five tries later, we got here – our own Southern take on Pommes Au Four. We cut the sugar to let the apples shine through. We added a yummy crumble of butter, brown sugar, and oats. Cinnamon on a baked apple? Yawn. Have you ever tried cardamon? The best part of this recipe is that it’s super flexible. I want to do one with a splash of bourbon next. Or layer in some pear slices. Maybe add some raisons? So fun.

One note: This is way easier to make when you use a mandoline. We sliced the apples the thinnest we could with a knife the first time and it worked OK, but using a mandoline set to 1mm on the next try was a game changer. Way faster, too. You could read a newspaper through the apple slices and they baked up so soft. Oh, and if you can’t get to a Pop Shelf for those cute little pots, just make them come to you!

Get more useful treats in our monthly newsletter! Sign up here, neighbor!