Not Vanilla Ice Cream: Baked Apples Are Incredible When Paired With This Rich, Creamy Topping

On a weeknight, three-ingredient baked apples are the perfect substitute for more complicated cobblers, crumbles, or crisps, providing a warm, tender bite that rivals more labor-intensive preparations. They're plenty tasty on their own, but baked apples are often served with a mixture of oats, nuts, dried fruit, brown sugar, and warming spices in the fruit's scooped hollow. And to make them seem all the more special, not to mention polished, it helps to add a little something extra. Ice cream is, of course, the classic mode. But mascarpone is a wonderfully creamy zag away from the expected.

Mascarpone is a particularly yielding soft cheese that's so smooth you can spoon it by the dollop, like cream cheese, and this consistency that happens to make it ideal for this application. A typical tiramisu ingredient, it's also no stranger to topping confections. Mascarpone is rich, with a full-fat dairy flavor, and just a little bit sweet on its own. It's by no means as tart as cream cheese, but it's also a little more acidic than the ice cream you might otherwise have used. Still, its milky flavor is subtle enough that it won't overpower the apples or compete with the dessert's warming spices.

Part of what makes baked apples so great is that they're an excellent way to use up any leftover fruits you might have hanging around. So whatever kind of apple you already have will be terrific. But if you're shopping specifically to pair them with mascarpone in this particular meal-ending configuration, you might want to pick some on the sweeter side to complement the cheese's own subtle flavor. Fuji apples are among the sweetest you can buy, though those with a less pronounced sweet tooth can reach for something notably tart like Granny Smiths or Mutsus. 

Mixing sugar in with the cheese gets you closer to a basic mascarpone cream, which can also incorporate whipped egg yolks for an even richer consistency. Some versions will also include vanilla extract and heavy cream, and other adaptations abound. You can further zhuzh up your own mascarpone cream with some of the same cinnamon from your baked apples or other complementary warming spices, like cardamom, allspice, or ground cloves. Or leave that mascarpone alone. Apples prepped, baked, and halved for easy serving are lovely with this dessert-leaning cheese, whether you further enhance it or not.