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By Sarah Condley

Our 90-something neighbor, Mr. Wells, pulled up in our driveway the other day and blew the horn. Brad went out to greet him and, bless his heart, he handed Brad a bucket full of farm apples. Now if you haven’t heard of farm apples, it may be a term I came up with to describe whatever kind of apple grows out on someone’s farm.  A lot of times the farm owner doesn’t know which variety it is or they may have more than one variety.  So I just call them farm apples.

When Brad told me what he’d done I had to figure out what I was going to do with all those apples and immediately headed to my stack of dessert recipes.  When I spotted the recipe for walnut apple dessert I just knew it was the one.  I’d torn the recipe out of the September/October 2013 issue of Taste of Home magazine.  It appeared in that edition as part of a Sam’s Club advertisement.  I knew this was the recipe to try because it sounded very easy to put together.

After washing the apples I greased a baking dish and then started peeling and coring them.  Farm apples are small and there are lots of blemishes on them so it took quite a few to end up with 8 cups.  As I sliced them I just tossed them into the greased baking dish and then sprinkled 1/4 cup of the brown sugar and the cinnamon over the top.  By the time I finished filling the baking dish with the apples, the butter was soft and I added it and the remaining brown sugar to a bowl and combined the two to a creamy mixture.  I stirred in the eggs and then added the flour and 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts.  The dough was fairly thick so I had to spread it over the apples as I dolloped it on top.  Once the apples were covered with the dough, I sprinkled the remaining walnuts over the top and into the oven this dish went.

The house filled with the aroma of fall while the dessert baked and after 55 minutes, when it came out of the oven, it looked pretty darn good.

You can bet that after our evening meal I was ready to give this walnut apple dessert a try.  I scopped some into a bowl and added a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Brad had a scoop without ice cream.  Oh boy, was this good.  The apples, walnuts and cinnamon were a great combination.  Brad agreed with me that this recipe falls into the Nailed It category.

This recipe makes a lot of dessert so we shared it. Of course we had to take some to Mr. Wells, and we also shared with other neighbors, Rachel and Maggie.  Rachel texted and let us know it was a winner in her book too.

Even if you don’t have farm apples, I would definitely recommend you try this dessert.  It’s easy to put together and it’s going to make your stomach happy.

Walnut Apple Dessert

8 cups sliced peeled tart apples (about 6 medium)

2 1/4 cups packed brown sugar, divided

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 cup butter, softened

2 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup finely chopped walnuts, divided

Vanilla ice cream optional

Place apples in a greased 9 x 13 baking dish.  Sprinkle with 1/4 cup brown sugar and cinnamon.  In a bowl, cream butter and remaining brown sugar.  Add eggs.  Stir in flour and 1/2 cup walnuts.  Spread over apples.  Sprinkle with remaining walnuts.  Bake at 350 degrees for 45-55 minutes or until the apples are tender.  Serve warm with ice cream if desired.