Topped with a creamy sauce and crunchy candied walnuts, these lovely purple-y poached apples both look and taste simply divine! Apples become so alluring when bathed in a syrup of red wine and pomegranate juice with a hint of rosemary, cinnamon and vanilla. It’s an elegant, grown up dessert that is perfect for the holidays, or frankly, any special occasion.
Cousin to the popular French dessert of poached pears, these poached apples are really marvelous. To be completely honest with you, I personally prefer the texture of a poached pear. But one of my readers report that they prefer poached apples in a comment on my poached pear salad recipe, so I had to try poaching my apples.
Apples are a little different. Apples are a little chewier. And don’t have as pretty of a shape when you poach them. So I found a different method of serving poached apples is necessary. I chopped them up, put them in pretty glasses and drizzled them with a sauce I made from the poaching syrup and cream cheese. Of course, candied walnuts are the perfect complement.
Last year, I made the poached pears for Thanksgiving this year and poached apples for Christmas (because I had so many apples that froze in my garage)! My sister and I had them for breakfast. My dad looked at us like we’re crazy. What? We were eating fruit for breakfast! It’s certainly healthier than our standard family practice of eating pie for breakfast the day after Christmas. (The pie for breakfast thing came about because many of us were often too stuffed from dinner to eat dessert that night. So we have pie for breakfast.)
Except that year, we were eating poached apples instead. It’s such an elegant dessert! And it’s not too heavy, so it’s perfect after a large meal. Honestly, I wrote this post up last year after the holidays and decided it needed to wait until this year to post it. So here you go, just in time for the holidays. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did.
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Pomegranate Port Poached Apples
- Prep Time: 15 min
- Cook Time: 45 min
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: About 4 servings 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: French
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
For the apples:
- 1 cup port wine (or other red wine)
- 1/2 cup pomegranate juice
- 4 – 6 apples (Any variety will work. I used honey crisp.)
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1/2 cup sugar
- A small sprig of fresh rosemary
For the sauce:
- 2 – 3 oz. Neufchatel (light cream cheese)
- Rosemary Wine Syrup from poaching the pears
For the top: Candied walnuts (from this recipe – or use store bought candied walnuts)
Instructions
- Pour the wine and pomegranate juice into a medium saucepan. Add the cinnamon stick, sugar and rosemary. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove from heat while you prep the apples.
- Peel the apples, cut them in quarters and cut out the core/seeds, placing them directly into the wine mixture as you go to keep them from oxidizing.
- Place the pan back on the stove and bring to a simmer. Cook for about 20 minutes until the apples are tender. Use a slotted spoon to scoop out the apples, then bring the liquid to a boil and cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is reduced to about half.
- To make the sauce, add the cream cheese bit by bit to the warm syrup, whisking until it’s smooth and as thick as you want it.
- To serve: chop the apples and put them in fancy glasses. Drizzle with the creamy sauce and top with chopped candied walnuts. If you like you can warm the apples or serve them cold. Both ways are good!
Notes
RECIPE SOURCE: Sumptuous Spoonfuls – https://www.sumptuousspoonfuls.com/ … © Copyright 2023, Sumptuous Spoonfuls. All images & content are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to publish any of my images, please ask first. If you want to republish this recipe as your own, please re-write the recipe in your own words or link back to this post for the recipe.
