Clue: Sign of ultimate judgment (in a word) for baked apple dish (8)
Answer: BLACKCAP
Explanation: Definition: baked apple dish
The "sign of ultimate judgment" is the BLACK CAP, formerly used by judges when pronouncing the death sentence. Azed helpfully (though I think unnecessarily) then tells us to write it as a single word, to get a baked apple dish, which I'd never heard of – recipe here (BLACKCAP is also a bird, which came up in a Phi puzzle that I blogged recently.)