I was apparently pretty useless over the holidays and ended up missing quite a few French Fridays with Dorie recipes. Among them was this one, Long & Slow Apples. Not the most exciting sounding recipe in the world, but my fellow Doristas assured me that it was worth the long and the slow.

The long part refers to the oven time and the slow part refers to the low oven temperature. But I thought that it also took a while to get the recipe together, even before it went into the oven. Here’s the deal, first you slice the apples as thin as possible (a job for my trusty mandolin) and then you layer them in ramekins, brushing with melted butter and sprinkling with spiced sugar and orange zest as you go. Then you top your ramekins with parchment paper (my version of the book said nothing about plastic wrap) and wrap them in foil. Then weigh the whole thing down, and into the oven.

Hours later, my apples had shrunk down by at least 50%, and taken on a pale caramel color. To be honest, they just didn’t look that exciting. But looks were deceiving, because they sure did taste good. Delicious in fact. I really enjoyed this recipe, but given how long it took to come together, it would probably have to be a pretty special occasion for me to break it out again.