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Apple ring is a
simple brunch treat

Typical unhappy cooking tale: You find a recipe that looks great, go out and buy all the ingredients, then lose the recipe.

I hate it when that happens.

Sadly, this fate befell Lynn Namihira, who came across a recipe for a pull-apart bread made with refrigerated biscuits and apple pie filling. "I have misplaced the recipe after purchasing the main ingredients," she wrote.

Pillsbury's extensive Web site, www.pillsbury.com, not to mention its many recipe pamphlets, are full of ideas for using the company's convenience products. Nothing quite fitting this description, using apple pie filling, though.

I experimented with Pillsbury's basic Monkey Bread, which uses refrigerated biscuits tossed in cinnamon and sugar, with a buttery, brown-sugar topping. With pie filling added, though, it took forever to bake and didn't turn out all that well.

This recipe is only a little more labor-intensive, and is worth the effort. It bakes up beautifully into a ring, with the apples slices tender and fresh-tasting. It would be an impressive addition to a holiday buffet, especially since it pulls apart into uniform sections; no cutting necessary.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 12-cup bundt or tube pan.

Spoon apple jelly evenly over bottom of pan; sprinkle with nuts. Combine brown sugar and cinnamon in small bowl; set aside. Cut each apple quarter into 4 slices.

Separate dough into 16 biscuits. Wrap 1 biscuit around each apple slice; pinch edges to seal and completely cover apple. Dip biscuits in margarine and roll in brown sugar-cinnamon mixture. Stand biscuits on end in greased pan. Drizzle with any remaining margarine; sprinkle with remaining cinnamon mixture.

Bake 30 to 40 minutes, until golden brown and no longer doughy in center (use a knife to test). Cool in pan 8 minutes, then invert onto serving plate. Scoop out any topping that sticks in pan over baked ring. Serve warm.

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Asterisk (*) after nutritional analyses in the Body & Soul section indicates calculations by Joannie Dobbs of Exploring New Concepts, a nutritional consulting firm.