Like many of my recipes, this one is pretty casual. Unlike many of my dessert recipes, it's actually pretty healthy.

Take something like half a cup of hazelnuts and spread them out on a cookie sheet or pan. Toast at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Let cool, then rub with a dishtowel to remove most of the hulls. (I mean the flour sacking kind of dish towel, not the terrycloth kind.) If you don't get all the hulls, don't worry about it. If the worst thing that happens to other people is a little bit of brown hazelnut skin in their apple, they're having a great week.

Core nine apples. Put them in a baking dish.

Put your cooled, hulled hazelnuts in a plastic bag or between sheets of waxed paper and roll them with a rolling pin. (You could also chop them, but there's no reason they have to be perfect.) Chop several dried apricots. Mix in a bowl with the hazelnuts. Add about 1/4 c. honey and 1/4 c. maple syrup. This proportion can go entirely one direction or the other if you are out of one or just don't like it. If you don't buy actual maple syrup, please use all honey instead of Mrs. Butterworth's. It'll be better that way.

Add 3/4 t. cinnamon and a heaping 1/4 t. nutmeg to the sweet stuff, nuts, and apricots. Stir it all up into goop. Add the goop to the center of the apples. Pour 1 c. of cider, apple juice, or water (or a mix of one or more of the above) into the pan with the apples. Top each apple with a dab of butter (or oleo if you have a vegan eating).

Bake at 350, covered, for 25 minutes. Remove covering, baste with juices, and bake at least 10 more minutes, until tender but not mushy. I didn't check the apples well enough, so they were crunchy, which tastes fine but is difficult to eat, especially if you're serving dessert sitting around on the sofa in the library instead of at a table where people can go at the things in earnest.