Tuhafija: walnut stuffed apples

Tufahija is a popular Bosnian specialty which you can find in bakery shops and cafes all year long in Sarajevo. However, it's more popular when muslim Bosnian people celebrate Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha and so it's made in a lot of houses on these special days. The main reason why the dessert is so popular is it's much lighter in calories than its rivals like baklava, ružica and hurmašica which are served with syrup. Another reason why tufahija is so popular is that, although lighter in calories, it still offers a great pleasure with its irresistible filling: walnuts and whipped cream. When you order a tufahija in any cafes here, it usually looks like this:

                             

Traditionally, apples are peeled and cored, poached in syrup and served with a mixture of whipped cream and walnuts. (I will post the traditional tufahija recipe soon by the way).

                                                                                                                                                                                      This time, instead, I didn't peel the apples in order to make them keep all the flavour inside the skin. Then I baked the apples in the oven wrapped up in aluminum foil with cloves instead of boiling them in syrup which consists perhaps more than a kilogram of sugar. This way, the apples turned out much more lighter and they looked so natural in the end. The addition of ground cinnamon was a must for me as a cinnamon lover and it went along very well with the taste of the baked apples. By the way, the skin of the apples came off very easily after they were baked. Anyways, here comes the recipe of Mehtap's Tufahija. 

Ingredients

4 medium golden delicious apples

4 tablespoons sugar

4-5 tablespoons ground walnuts

8 cloves 

cinnamon

whipped cream 

aluminum foil

Directions

o. Preheat the oven at 200°C. 

1. Wash the apples and cut the tops off, but keep them aside. 2. Cut out the core. Remove all the seeds and a little more. Be careful not to make any holes at the bottom. 

3. Fill each apple with 1 tablespoon of sugar and sprinkle with some ground cinnamon.

4.  Place the tops of the apples back.

5. Wrap each apple in aluminum foil with two cloves. 

6. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes.

7. Let the apples cool down completely.

8. Meanwhile, mix some cream until thick and blend it ground walnuts.

9. Stuff each apple (when they are cool enough to handle) with walnut-cream mixture and put the tops back.

10. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve. 

11. Serve the apples cold in individual bowls topped with some extra whipped cream.