As you know from my post yesterday, I just discovered what I had been missing for the past couple of years and how I am jumping in at the last minute to play French Fridays with Dorie where bloggers cook through her award-winning book, Around My French Table.

I am thrilled that my first assignment is dessert. Long and slow apples. This simple, elegant dessert has a very modest ingredient list, in sharp contrast to the lengthy baking time – four hours to be exact.

Slicing the apples as thinly as possible (with a mandoline or slicer) is the key to achieving the delicateness of this sweet, luscious dessert.

The apple slices are layered  in ramekins and brushed with melted butter and spiced sugar. They are then baked at a low heat for all those hours, yielding the most tender, juiciest, sweetest bites of velvety goodness.

Long and slow. The best things in life are worth the wait. And these apples are no exception.

Unfortunately, I cannot print the recipe- but you can (and should!) buy the book and cook along with us. There are just three weeks of January recipes posted on the FFWD site and I am not sure how many, if any, recipes are left in their entire schedule. But, even after their regimen ends, I plan to keep on going and cook from the book and post on Fridays until I have completed them.  Or at least until the end of 2013. Consider it my resolution.

Buy the book: