Baked Apples with Sweet Bechamel Sauce

Cut the baking paper so that you can easily wrap the apples in it. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees, cut out the core of the apples and insert a cinnamon stick into each cavity.

Now wrap the apples in the baking paper and tie at the top with kitchen twine and place in the oven for about 20-25 minutes. The time can vary depending on the apple type and size. Check every now and then. The apples should be soft, but not mushy.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Sprinkle in the flour and stir vigorously to make a roux. Now pull the pot off the stove and let it cool down for about 2 minutes. Then slowly pour in the milk while stirring.

Now scrape out the vanilla pod, add the pulp and the pod to the milk, as well as the clove, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and orange zest and also add the sugar and slowly bring everything to a simmer over medium heat and cook for 10 minutes Simmer over low heat, stirring every now and then.

If the sauce gets too thick, just stir in a little more milk. Then pour it into a jug.

Take the apples out of the oven, remove the baking paper and the cinnamon stick and arrange on a plate, pour the sauce over them.

You can serve the sauce cold, hot or lukewarm. It tastes best for us hot. If something remains, you can safely store it in the refrigerator for 2 days. Then just warm it up again and if it has got too thick there, stir in some milk again.