How to make apple crumb cake. I’ll show you how to make a delicious apple crumb cake that has a crisp top and is moist in the middle

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This beautiful cake is more apple than cake which makes it so moist and delicious.  A dusting of powdered sugar is all the adornment it needs, although a little whipped cream never hurt anything..

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of salt

4 large Granny Smith apples

2 large eggs

3/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons apple juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 stick of unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Confectioners sugar for dusting top

• pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees
• Generously butter a 9″ spring form pan and place it on a foil lined rimmed cookie sheet
• Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl
• Peel the apples, then cut them in half, remove the seeds and cut them into 1/4″ slices
• In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs until they are foamy
• Pour in the sugar, apple juice and vanilla and blend
• Add half the flour mixture and mix
• Add half the melted butter and mix
• Again the flour, then the butter mixing after each addition
• Whisk until you have a smooth batter
• With a rubber spatula, fold in the apples and coat with the batter
• Pour into the pan, pushing down the apples a bit to level out the top
• Bake for about an hour and twenty minutes or until the top is golden brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean
• Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then run a knife around the perimeter and release the spring form
• Store at room temperature until completely cooled
• Dust the top with confectioners sugar

Friday 22^nd February

Breakfast – wholemeal toast with homemade marmalade, tea with soya milk

Lunch – a baked potato with baked beans in the work canteen

Dinner – at POD Deli, an independent café near my home.  Houmous and Roasted Vegetables deli sandwich, with salad and olives, a packet of Ready Salted crisps, Moroccan Mint tea

Water

Saturday 23^rd February

Breakfast – fab homemade breakfast of leftover quinoa and leek ‘risotto’ from earlier in the week scrambled with tofu, rye toast, baked beans, fried V-Pud (black pudding), tea with soya milk

Mid-morning: a soya latte at a coffee shop

Lunch – nice meal out at Summersaults restaurant in Rugby www.summersault.ltd.uk   – chestnut pie and red cabbage salad, pot of Raspberry and Cranberry tea

Dinner – baked potato, lovely salad from recipe on internet with a sweet, spicy dressing, followed by a warmed slice of Crimble’s Dutch Apple Cake with Alpro dairy-free custard

Water

Sunday 24^th February

Breakfast – Museli and soya milk, an orange, wholemeal toast with ‘Vitalite’ vegan margarine and marmite, instant coffee with soya milk

Lunch –  recipe from internet using orzu (rice shaped pasta), tomato paste, garam masala and mushrooms, leftover salad from day before, followed by warmed Dutch Apple Cake with Alpro custard

Evening – trip out to the Indian buffet at Nawaab, near where I live – I ate all sorts of things from the vegetarian part of the buffet, with chickpeas, spinach, aubergine, okra, rice, cornbread, carrots.  I think I might have failed to stay Vegan, because I realised afterwards that carrot Halwa is gently cooked in milk.  It was a lovely meal, but I wasn’t thoughtful enough about it in terms of staying Vegan, and I also ate too much which made me feel unwell the following day.  The peril of greedy me at the buffet!

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Monday 25^th February

No breakfast

A lot of peppermint tea

During the day I nibbled on 2 packets of Ready Salted crisps and drank some apple juice

Evening meal – a ‘burger’ made with a baked mushroom, avocado, spinach, pesto (‘Meridian’ vegan pesto) and tomato ketchup

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Herbal tea

Tuesday 26th February

Breakfast – Museli and soya milk.  Herbal tea.

Mid-morning: orange juice, dried apricots and Salt & Vinegar crisps

Lunch: ‘Urban Eat’ ready-made sandwich of Roast Veg and Houmous, an apple, black coffee

Dinner: Mushroom and avocado burger with pasta, steamed spinach, pesto, beluga lentils, herbal tea

Later: snacked on brazil nuts and dried prunes, fruity tea

Water

Last week my eldest daughter and I made a trip to one of my favourite towns in Denmark; Helsingør, or Elsinore as it was called in Shakespeare’s time. This small town, with its massive fortress of Kronborg overlooking the sound to Sweden oozes history with every cobbled step. I always find that if I need to clear my head and get a new perspective on things, then a windswept walk with Holly the dog around the massive ramparts of the castle always does the trick. The views are extraordinary; with the short four kilometer crossing to Helsingborg in Sweden making it one of the busiest in northern Europe, with 13 million people transported every year. The huge ferries ply their way in an almost haphazard fashion every 20 minutes, and from where we sit on the pebbled beach look surreal and higher than us. Always moving, this frenetic man-made view is so mad and so very inspirational.

It’s always been busy; if you drag your hands through the shiny pebbles on the beach you uncover a fistful of sea-worn artifacts. From softly sandblasted glass fragments of dark green, royal blue, turquoise, grey and brown to terracotta jug handles, tiles, red bricks, patterned plate fragments and rustic mediaeval faience wear. Last summer I was lying on the beach making pictures of galleons out of the clouds with my youngest daughter and casually remarked that I knew that I would find some treasure. Minutes later, as I dredged the stones behind my sleepy head I came up with a twisted pewter spoon. The story lies so close by on this energy charged shore; this place where we sweetly lay was composed of moments of time. With every turn past the red brick battlements or whitewashed interior dungeons, you feel that if you had glimpsed half a second earlier you would see someone. Layer upon layer of lives, all churned by the constant tide and scattered across the beach. You just need to know how to look.

The town itself of Helsingør is bursting with stories untold too. Modern day tales begin immediately as you close your eyes and hear the jolly rattle, jingle and thump of beer crates being pulled on trolleys across the old cobbles; as day-tripping Swedes hastily purchase cheap Danish booze to take home to their prohibition ridden land. Summer café terraces are filled with their pissed fellow countrymen, as they dribble into their beer and marvel at the salacious nature of cousin Denmark in the cold Christian heart of Scandinavia. It’s an unrewarding occupation watching them though; they are like kids in a candy shop and you are the bored shopkeeper.

Last week it was terribly cold, with a wind-chill taking it down to a minus 18 c on a February day. Helsingør is situated on a very cold and draughty corner between the Kattegat and the Baltic, even in Shakespeare’s Hamlet there is mention to the extraordinary cold two times! We knew what he meant, snow flurried around us as we scrabbled our way up one of the straight mediaeval streets, thinking of our favourite bakery and the hot coffee and delicious cakes waiting for us. On either side of us the tall brick Dutch renaissance style merchant houses, the stucco facades of embassies of world powers from the 17th century nestled in between more modest half timbered taverns and chandlers. Underneath the grand old bones of these once noble buildings were housed booze shops, flower shops, chemist shops and discount stores. Helsingør has declined since its heady days as the Dubai of the middle ages and most frequented port of call in the north rather badly; she was after all the spoilt mistress of a very wealthy idea indeed, which spanned 400 years.

During the last quarter of the sixteenth century Denmark was the most powerful Continental kingdom in Northern Europe, the reasons for this rise to wealth, riches and fame were conceived one hundred and fifty years earlier by a young king named Erk of Pomerania. Erik had the unenviable task of finding himself as the sole ruler of the United Kingdom of Scandinavia; Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Orkney islands, the Shetland islands and Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany, all shining jewels in the crown of fifteen year old Erik. This Kingdom was very big by contemporary standards, indeed a huge swathe of far-flung lands that became immensely costly with the administrative expenses that were incurred in order to rule them. Previously, huge shoals of herring had more than adequately filled the royal coffers, but these oily fish had mysteriously slipped out of the hands of the Danes to move elsewhere.

Young Erik tackled the winds of change with a stroke of genius, and in 1423 summoned a group of merchants from the powerful Hanseatic League and informed them of his cunning plan, an idea so brilliant that it has been described as “400 years of legal piracy.” He informed them that henceforth he intended to levy a new toll; every ship wishing to sail past Helsingør, whether on its way out of or into the Baltic, would have to dip its flag, strike its topsails and cast anchor so that the captain might go ashore and pay to the customs officers in the town a toll of ‘one English noble.’ At the time equivalent to the price of an ox. Naturally all the horny crew would disembark too and spend their time and money in whorehouses and taverns, whilst supplies would be replenished, ropes and sails mended, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker all visited and for some reason the paper work would take weeks. The final flourish of this scam to end all scams was then that the numerous ship captains would have to wait patiently for the right wind to fill his sails.

If you look at the faded beauty of Helsingør you can glimpse flashes of her charms in hidden courtyards, where third-rate pizza restaurants try to recreate Italy on a budget. In ochre, red and brown half-timbered houses, where a cat sits in a window and a candle burns in another. In the many 18th century delightful carved and decorated doors, that must have competed with each other to become the most original or in vogue. The streets run straight and in an almost American style, young Erik wanted the town to be quickly built to reap in the Sound Dues with a simple grid plan.

A slice of Danish pie

To me the passing of this institution is a tragedy. One more bright ribbon is snatched from the hair of the once beautiful mistress of Kronborg. I grieve that I never photographed or sketched the coffee cup rattling, the arthritic old ladies with splendid hats, 1950’s décor and large deposits of crumbs under the table legs. I grieve that I never encouraged my eldest daughter to write her story of “Mike and Spike,” the two fat mice who lived so well in the bakery and who slept in a fake wedding cake. Everything was so loved and familiar.

I can offer you an edible memory though, a Danish cake that will confidently hit the spot and needs no further explanation for its delicious self:

Danish Apple Pie

Preheat the oven to 160 C
Take 100 g butter and melt it in a medium-sized pan. Add 175 g sugar, 100 g plain flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 40 g desiccated coconut and 1 egg. Beat with a wooden spoon until blended.
Line a small cake or flan tin with greaseproof paper.
Take 2 apples, peel, core and cut into segments. Lay in a spiral pattern over the cake mixture. Sprinkle with a couple of dessert spoon full of sugar and cinnamon. Bake the cake for about 40 minutes, or until an inserted knife comes out cleanly.
Serve with creamy crème fraiche and strong coffee. I tend to double the quantities as it is so irresistible!

Serve with a dollop of creme fraiche

I first made this recipe as a bundt cake in 1987.  It is from a 1978 cookbook, Southern Sideboards.  For today’s dessert, I cut the recipe in half and baked it in a 9×9 inch pan.  Easy to make, easy to work with and definitely good and easy on the tongue.

APPLE CAKE WITH PEANUT BUTTER ICING

• ½ cup cooking oil
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs, well beaten
• 1-½ tsp. vanilla
• 1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• ½  tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1-1/2 cups chopped, peeled tart apples

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Grease a 9-inch baking pan

In a large bowl, whisk together the oil, sugar and eggs.  Add vanilla.

Whisk together the flour, soda, baking powder and salt – blend into creamed mixture.  Fold in pecans and apples.  Pour into a greased 9×9 inch baking pan.

Bake @ 350°F oven for 30-35 minutes until tester inserted in center of cake comes out clean..  Cool in pan on a wire rack.

Ice with Peanut Butter Icing (below).

PEANUT BUTTER ICING

• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 Tblsp. evaporated milk
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla.
• ½ cup creamy peanut butter

In a small pan, place the brown sugar, butter and milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat immediately and stir in vanilla and peanut butter.  Beat with a spoon until icing is room temperature and thick.  Spread over cake.

Servings:  9

Streusel is on the bottom!

Lovely cake with a crunchy streusel topping and a whiff of cinnamon! It’s really easy to mix up by hand and uses ingredients found in every kitchen. This is a great treat for a little get-together of friends or family!

Mix these:

1  cup salad oil (origina calls for 1  1/4 cups)

2 cups light brown sugar

2 teas vanilla

3 eggs

(2-3 T  water if needed to mix)

Stir together:

3 cups flour

1/2 teas salt

1 teas baking soda

1  1/2 teas cinnamon

1 teas nutmeg ( if desired) ( I used a dash)

Stir the wet into the dry then add:

3 cups chopped peeled apple

1 cup chopped walnuts

Pour it into a greased and floured bundt pan or ring pan. Top with this streusel that you cut together with a fork:

2 Tbs margarine

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup oatmeal

2 teas cinnamon

2 tsp flour

Bake at 350 F for 55 minutes. Cool and remove from pan.

I had assumed that I’d become immune to embarrassment, thanks to a long haul desensitisation programme courtesy of my husband. It just wasn’t humanly possible to blush every single time someone fell victim to his uninhibited candour (‘if I had feet like yours, I wouldn’t wear open-toed shoes’ springs to mind).

But for some reason, in his Basque terrorist guise when we went out to lunch today, he inadvertently excelled himself. Obviously I have nothing against Basque terrorists per se. After all, nobody can wear a beret quite like a Basque. And their food is beyond divine. Of course, they hit a low point when they started blowing things up, but nobody’s perfect. But the beret, a promotional gift from our local DIY store with their logo written across the front in BRIGHT RED LETTERS, proved to be a cringe too far. I appear to have become, amongst other things, a beret snob

This apple cake is as simple as it gets, but no less delicious for it and certainly nothing to be ashamed of; I’ve had enough shame for one week

Ingredients

2 large apples, peeled and sliced

handful of raisins

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

150g cane sugar

200g spelt flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

2 eggs, beaten

1 pot of yoghurt (125g)

75ml melted virgin coconut oil

75ml melted butter

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Poach the apples and raisins in a small amount of water. Add the cinnamon. Once the apples are soft (about 15 minutes), drain the excess cooking juice and set aside. Combine the sugar, flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda, then add the yoghurt, eggs and melted coconut oil and butter. Mix well. Stir in the poached apples and cook in a medium-sized cake tin for 30 minutes.

Verdict: Well I thought they turned out pretty well, I took some to my gym and have a box in my bag to take to the girls. I’m writing this on the train, I’m so modern.

I got a dozen cupcake sized cakes out of this mixture and a small loaf cake. The cupcakes could have been filled up a little bit more. The recipes is from the Great British Book Of Baking, which makes a round cake, but I think it suits muffin form.

175g Light muscavado sugar
175g Butter or margerine
250g Self raising flour
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda – it doesn’t call for this in the recipe but I feel like it needs a bit extra to counteract the acidity of the apples and cider.
500g (About 5 apples) Peeled, cored and chopped tart eating apples, I cut them into about 1cm pieces. This size means it doesn’t just turn to mush. And I used braeburns which are the best apples hands down.
3 eggs
100ml dry cider – I don’t think it needs to be anything fancy, infact I used strongbow once.
Cinnamon
Oats (optional)

The best part of the recipe is having the leftover cider which you obviously must drink. Though I did save mine to the evening, didn’t think 11am on a Saturday was really the right time. The worst part of it is peeling the apples. I’ve never got on very well with peelers. However, if you can peel the whole apple without breaking the peel, it means you can make a wish. I wish for more patience.

The recipe starts off just like a normal cake. Heat oven to about 170C. Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the eggs (and a bit of flour with each addition to prevent curdling), sift in the rest and of the flour, bicarb and about 1 tsp of ground cinnamon.

Half mix in the flour then tip in the apples and half incorporate those, then add the cider and mix it all together properly. I say half mix the flour because I try to avoid overworking it.

Fill cake cases. It’s best to fill the quite full, since the mixture has big apple lumps there’ll be lots of gaps in the case. The mixture doesn’t rise all that much.

Mix some oats (about a handful) with a bit of sugar and some more cinnamon. Sprinkle on the top before baking. Bake the cupcakes/muffins for 25 to 30 minutes. It’s ok to be generous with the cooking time if your nervous about undercooking like I was, as there’s not much risk of them getting dry, just don’t burn them. The loaf cake took about 45 minutes.

I made this cake for the first time last December. While it tasted really really amazing, I forgot to take some at least semi-decent pictures so I’m afraid I wasn’t really able to sell the recipe. So let me try again. This is a gooey brown butter cake with apples. It’s made with brown butter and apples. And it’s gooey. It’s truly one of the best cakes I’ve ever had. And I hope these pictures do the recipe a little more justice!

Find the recipe here; and I hope you like this gooey mess as much as I do!

My Oma was an amazing cook, as a young woman she worked as a butcher and I think this may be where she found her love of cooking. The things I remember coming out of my Oma’s oven! The most memorable was a Christmas dinner of Pigs trotter! Thankfully I didn’t have to eat it, she’d made me something else for Christmas dinner, but I will never forget that hideous pig foot baking away in it’s own juices.

There were a few things that my Oma was famous for, her Berliners, which she used to make mini versions of for my brother and I when we came to stay for school holidays and feed to us at breakfast! (Don’t you love Grandmothers?) Her cheesecakes and her Apfel Kuchen. If you went to Oma’s house and there was a freshly baked Apfel Kuchen sitting on the kitchen bench then you were in heaven.

Well before my Oma died she had given me the recipe for her Apfel Kuchen and for some reason I had never made it. After her funeral I hunted through my recipe stash and found it. Baking that cake was the best thing I could have done for my grieving heart. As the sweet unforgettable smell of that baking cake filled my house I was taken right back to the warmth and security of my Oma’s house; but the best thing of all was sitting down and taking a big bite. Suddenly I was 5 again, my Oma had sat me down with a big slice of cake and I was left alone to enjoy it. Bliss

I stopped feeling sad after eating that slice of cake. Every time I miss her I’ll bake her Apfel Kuchen and remember how my darling Oma was a sanctuary of peace, love and delicious food as I was growing up.

Go and bake something and share it with someone you love today, go and create memories that will last longer than your lifetime.

Apfel Kuchen

This is another modified recipe (here is the original tray bake from Susi’s Bakery). Wanted to make a birthday cake on a Sunday while staying over at parents’ house, which is far away from shops. No plain (wheat) flour in the house – just bread flour (rye, spelt). Came up with the following recipe, for a large circular tin:

For the dough, blend together:

250 g spelt flour
about 100 g butter
about 50 ml vegetable oil (or sunflour, rapeseed, groundnut etc)
about 150 g sugar
vanilla essence
a dash of rum (or aroma)
creamed poppy seeds (Heat and stir 70g ground poppy seeds with a dash of milk, a dollop of butter and a tbsp of sugar to form a porridge like substance. You can also add a bit of marzipan after cooking, if you’ve still got Christmas leftovers…)
1/2 cup of fromage frais/greek yoghurt/plain yoghurt/buttermilk
3-4 egg yolks
3-4 egg whites (beaten)
milk to soften the dough

Spread half the dough onto the bottom of a cake tin.

Add a layer of peeled, cored and thinly sliced apples (about 3 apples, depending on size – I used Cox).

Add 1 mashed banana to the remaining dough and spread it over the apple layer.

Sprinkle chopped almonds around the edges of the cake.

Bake for about 45 mins at 160 degrees celsius.

The cake tastes really good.

As it cooled it started to sink a little, which made me a bit nervous. It gradually sunk more and more, and assuming it wasn’t quite done in the middle I gave it a little prod on top. I felt a wobble inside the cake and a quiet squelchy noise. My worst fear was almost confirmed. I knew I couldn’t risk taking the cake in as it was and someone cutting it open to find it raw in the middle so I decided to cut a piece to see how bad the damage was. Nothing could prepare me for the horror that I was about to witness! A flood of raw mixture came oozing out. This picture is quite early in its flow.

In the end I cut around the raw part and just took in lumps of cake. Lesson learnt. Don’t try to do too many things at once.

This happened after I had almost forgotten to put sugar in the shortbread, it even got into the oven before I whipped it out and mushed it all up again and added sugar. What a nightmare.

It was all worth it though for the £138.49 we raised! Even if my kitchen did look like this at one point.

When I make the apple cake again I’ll write about it properly. It’s delicious.

I did not like Country Bear. He came asking his neighbor for an ingredient, which is no big deal, but he kept mooching another thing and another thing! He was not being a very good neighbor.

I really like the smudged quality of the pictures. It gives the story a dreamlike quality, which makes sense because I’m pretty sure the Country Bear is actually a teddy bear, so the story takes place in the girl’s imagination.

I think it’s a good book to read aloud to small children before bedtime, but I don’t see it as an independent read. It has a good story and educational concept behind it, which is always a plus in my book.

“Know ye, that we, graciously cherishing the common good and benefit of the inhabitants of Kings Norton…do give and grant… that they hold and keep, to the sole and proper benefit and use of the inhabitants of the same town of Kings Norton…a market to be held and kept on Saturdays… Attested by the King at Westminster on the 15th May 1616”

It being February and olden times aside, admittedly I am starting to lose any eagerness with buying parsnips or kale from the vegetable stall, the thought of another heavy root based dinner makes me feel full without even eating. There are only so many roasted parsnips that you can take in one season and although I love kale, being handed half a carrier bag is more of a hindrance rather than an excitement inducer at the moment. But I did get two large handfuls of purple sprouting broccoli which will go well with some midweek pasta, if I am honest so far February does feel like a cul-de-sac with things coming out of the soil.

However the apples from Nick and Penny Wendon of Old Sandlin Fruits in Malvern as per usual were top-notch and the late season eaters at the moment are in fantastic condition, so much that I filled a bag with the last of the Cox’s for this year (two weeks ago it was Egremont) and I also picked up a big bag of Concorde pears that were so delicate tasting they were the best I have tasted this season. I also purchased from the stall two bottles of unfiltered emerald-green apple juice, one a sharp Bramley juice and the other Egremont that were so sharply refreshing I wished I had bought more.

I could write about apples all day long, they have always been around in my life. It’s fair to say there are not many days of the year I am not without an apple in the work bag or I do not eat an apple at home. It’s a running joke in the house, so much that for my last birthday Becky kindly made me an apple-shaped birthday cake.

Seeing the changes through the UK apple season is a real journey and tasting the varieties becomes obsessive as much as a pleasure. To think that we have 2000 to choose from, some varieties being rarer. The good choice comes from clever and dedicated people like the Wendon’s who care about their orchards but also care about differentiating themselves from the supermarket top 10 varieties.

I am still yet to have a Blenheim Orange, my search goes on and thankfully a long the way I get to eat apples which I have never heard of or never new existed. My current and probably all time favourite, the Cox Orange Pippin is a superb all-rounder although this years were not as good as last. What can go better than a russeted Cox with a lump of mature cheddar and some bread ? Quite simply one of the best quick meals going. The alchemistic sounding names like Northern Spy, Keep Sake, Jonathan, Stayman-Winesap, Sun Dance, Grimes Golden and Gravenstien make me wonder why, and how they get branded with names like that ?

This recipe is not an apple-shape pudding (I hear you panic) but more so a dark and dare I say it a stodgy spiced cake found in a back issue of Olive magazine the cake is perfectly moist and deeply aromatic that also keeps well. I used some Bramley apples, however a few good eaters to the same weight would not harm it. I have not tried, but pears could work well too – something like the concorde or conference which also cooks nicely in a cake.

Spiced Apple Market Cake..

125 grams of unsalted butter

225 grams of dark muscovado sugar

2 free range eggs, at room temperature and beaten

225 grams of plain flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

2 teaspoons of all spice

1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

300 grams of cooking apples , peeled and diced

2 tablespoons of runny honey

2 tablespoons of demerara sugar

1. Heat the oven to 160C/fan. Cream the butter and muscovado sugar in a food processor for a couple of minutes, it’s vital you have room temperature butter or it will not cream. Then mix in the egg. Sift over the flour, baking powder and spices. Fold together and then stir in the apple.

2. Pour into a buttered, base-lined springform cake tin and bake for 1 hour, until risen and browned. Mix the honey and demerara and spread over the cake while still warm. Remove from the tin. This will keep for 3-4 days wrapped in foil. It will age nicely too, like a ginger cake it’s better settled rather than immediately eaten or soon afterwards.

Kings Norton Farmers’ Market takes place on every second Saturday of the month, congratulations are also due for the market being awarded runner up in finals for community market farmers market of the year for 2013.

Banana, Chocolate & Jam / Bacon & Apple

Banana & Chocolate

Pompadour Chocolate Shop

The Pancake Bakery: Pancakes Round 2

Outdoor Marketplace

Winkle’s famous Apple Cake & Whipped Cream

Waffle with Nutella, Strawberries & Whipped Cream : A sweet way to end our trip

I am aware that I should make the most of the wonderful juicy apples here. They grow almost everywhere in England. Although all is not as rosy as it seems. A long time ago there were approximately 1,500 varieties of apples in this country. Now there are only around 500, and we are eating a lot less than that. It seems that we are only buying what looks good on supermarket shelves, many of which are imported from other countries. Pity.

There are many recipes out there for apple cake, but I chose to try one from Nigella’s Domestic Goddess book, or a variation of it anyway. (Turns out that Nigella’s recipe is a twist on one by Anna del Conte.) The original recipe calls for walnuts, listed as an optional ingredient. The thing is though, I did have the walnuts, way above the amount stated. I took the package out of my pantry and placed it right in front of me. However, as is typical when in a rush, or when there’s no peace of mind, I totally forgot about them and ended up with a plain apple cake. Typical. It was delicious anyway but I think it did lack something and I missed them. It would have been better to have them in the cake. There’s always a next time though…

I made this apple cake during the Christmas holidays, since I wanted an easy alternative to the traditional fruity one which can be a little bit too much for two people. This one struck the right balance. (Next time I will try to use baking powder instead of the bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartare.) You will need:

• 100g sultanas
• 75ml rum
• 150ml vegetable oil
• 200g golden caster sugar
• 2 eggs, large
• 350g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• ½ teaspoon cream of tartar
• 450g apples, peeled and cut into small cubes
• zest of 1 lemon
• ½ teaspoon lemon oil (the original recipe doesn’t have this so don’t worry if you don’t have it.)
• (100g chopped walnuts, optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 175ºC, and grease and line a 20cm springform cake tin. In a small pan with a heavy base, place the sultanas and rum on the hob. When they start bubbling away, take them off the heat and set aside to cool.
2. In a large bowl add the flavourless oil and sugar and start beating, while adding the eggs one by one. Add the flour, cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar and mix with a large metal spoon. The mixture will be quite stiff here so you do need some elbow grease I’m afraid! Fold in the apples, lemon juice, lemon oil and walnuts if you are including them (you really should I think).
3. Tip the cake batter into your prepared tin and bake for around 1 hour. Always check if it’s cooked through with a knife or skewer. Eat it warm and make sure to wrap it in foil to keep it moist.

Good with a cup of coffee. Enjoy. R x.

I really hope that you’ll enjoy this journey with me!
Heather

Many of you asked for the Plum cake recipe so here it is. I even baked another one so you will have a better idea of what it should look like.

Below in Hebrew and English -

200g Butter (melt it in Microwave and cover so it want “explode’…

1.5 cups of sugar

2 cups of raising flour or regular flour with a sachet of baking powder

3 eggs

About 13-16 Plums it really depends on you. the more you put the more moist it will be and maybe more time for baking will be needed. Washed and cut into quarters and then half of each quarter. again, personal preference, you can play with it.

Method

Throw all in except from the fruit in a big bowl and mix! it  will be quiet thick and not runny which is perfectly fine! its going to bake beautifully in the oven.

Then add the fruit in, mix it in with a table spoon and pour into the baking pan.

Bake for about 45-50 minutes (depends in the oven) on 170 degrees and leave in for further 10 minutes after switching oven off. 

Bon Appetite;-)

עוגת שזיפים (את השזיפים ניתן להחליף כמעט בכל פרי אחר)

200 גרם חמאה מומסת (אפשר במיקרו רק לא לשרוף ולכסות)

כוס וחצי סוכר

2 כוסות קמח תופח או קמח רגיל עם שקית של אבקת אפייה (זה מה שאני תמיד עושה)

3 ביצים

12-15 שזיפים והאמת היא שאתם יכולים להחליט כמה פרי אתם רוצים בעוגה וזה נורא תלוי בגודל הפרי. לא לפחד לשים הרבה אבל בלי המיץ…

אופן ההכנה – מאוד מסובך…

בקערה אחת לשטוף ולחתוך את השזיפים לארבע ואחר כך את הארבע לחצי…

בקערה שנייה לערבב את כל שאר המוצרים יחד ולערבב..

העיסה תהיה סמיכה ולא דלילה אבל זה בסדר. בתנור הכל יסתדר.

לערבב את הפרי לתוך הבלילה ולסדר בתבנית!

לאפות בחום של 170 מעלות בערך כ-45 דקות. תלוי כמובן בתנור שלכם, כל תנור הוא שונה.

אחרי האפייה מומלף לתת לעוגה לשבת בתנור החם כעשר דקות נוספות שתתייבש קצת.

בהצלחה ובתיאבון!

Crispy and Flaky Crust!

The recipe is from Allrecipes.com: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/german-apple-cake-i/ and it is Called German Apple Cake. What is German about it, I am not sure exactly. Smitten Kitchen has a German Apple Cake recipe on her website (which I have not tried), about which she writes: “I remember it being called at different times a ‘German Apple Cake’ and a ‘Jewish Apple Cake.’” So if Smitten Kitchen is correct, then it must be incumbent on every Jew, especially those of Western European descent, to make this cake.

I had bookmarked this cake almost a year ago to try (no idea how I came across it originally), and always stared longingly at the recipe until I finally had the opportunity to make it a few months ago. It is an incredibly easy, one bowl recipe, and while the recipe officially calls for a 9×13 inch cake pan, I have used a bundt pan each time I have made this cake, and I profess, it adds multitudes to the aesthetic delicious-ness of the cake.

If you are looking for a delicious and easy way to impress yourself and your guests, and you have a hankering for some apple, give it a try!

Healthy Alternative: I once substituted 3/4 applesauce for 3/4 oil, and while the cake still tasted delicious (if slightly sweeter), it was not as crisp and flaky on the outside, and was more prone to falling apart. Still though, there was not a crumb leftover.

Mixing the apples into the batter

Does anyone know more about the origins of the German Apple Cake?

I saw a nice Dutch apple cake and was impressed by a gorgeous Nordic Heritage cake pan.  Finally, I got it from the US to Hong Kong without paying high shipping charges.  Very nice!  Thank you, Justin.  It is made in the USA,  sturdy and the conduction is very good.  I shared the majority with church friends and received wonderful appreciation.  One liked especially ‘no butter’ because she is aging. The sweetness was right.  Ha, I reduced  from 2 cups (450g) to 250g.

Grease every single crevice of your pan. Preheat the oven to 180C.

Toss together the following and set aside:
3 apples – peeled, cored and cut into thin wedges
pinch of salt
juice of one lemon
35g sugar

Then sift together:
360g all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder

In a large bowl mix:
250g sugar (reduced from 2 cups sugar)
4 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 apple for making apple sauce
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup fresh orange juice
Lemon zest

Make apple sauce:
Blend together the apple, orange juice and butter milk to form apple sauce

Mix the flour and wet ingredients together in a large bowl until just combined.

Mix the batter and apple.  Pour the mixture into a baking pan

Bake for 70 minutes or till a knife inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Wait 5 minutes, then invert pan and cool.

It’s lashing against the windows as I write and the sky is slate grey and heavy with clouds. I think it’s time for a warming and homely pick-you-up in the form of a generous wedge of Dorset apple cake.

As I was chopping up the apples and grating the nutmeg into the mixture for this cake this morning I couldn’t help thinking how much the taste of certain food conjures up old memories.

For me the taste of a slice of this cake warm from the oven reminds me of my childhood and my mother’s baking.

She was a good cook and a busy woman (aren’t all mothers!) but she often made time to bake sweet things for us. Apple cake, chocolate cake, cupcakes, Victoria sponge – nothing earth-shatteringly inventive or difficult but all baked with love, and all delicious.

To me that’s what cakes are. Love.

Love in a cake tin.

I first came across this recipe at Everybody Likes Sandwiches, a favourite Canadian food blog, and knew that I wanted to make this cake – it’s baked in a skillet, for goodness sake! The recipe originally comes from a book called Vintage Cakes (which I have already asked Michael to get me for my birthday), and after borrowing the book from the library, I wouldn’t mind trying out a few more “vintage” recipes, especially if the success of this recipe is any indicator of the quality of this book!

I call this cake “Invincible” Ozark Pudding Cake because it seems like you can adapt it quite easily for what you have on hand. The version of the cake I saw online had apples; the book recommends pears. Slivered almonds are called for, but I didn’t have any on hand, so used a chopped almond/pecan mix the first time, and toasted pecans the second (yes, I’ve made this cake twice…in one week!) The second time I made it, I accidentally dumped the fruit and nuts into the liquid ingredients before adding the dry ingredients…and it turned out okay! This is clearly a versatile cake, and I think cakes baked in skillets are just so…charming. Homey. Makes you feel like it’s healthy, even?

I baked this cake on a Sunday morning when I had invited one of our students over for breakfast – that time I used apples and almonds + pecans. The second time round, I made it for our SBS girls’ small group, using pears and toasted pecans. Delicious with a cup of black tea, I dare you not to make this cake twice in one week!

Invincible Ozark Pudding Cake

Ingredients

• 2 apples/pears; peel, core and chop one; core and thinly slice the other (you can leave the skin on the second one!)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger (I didn’t have any so used pumpkin pie spice, which was delicious)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature (I used margarine straight out of the fridge, because it’s what I had)
• 1 cup white sugar (I cut back to 3/4 cup the second time round)
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup nuts (original recipe suggests sliced natural almonds, toasted)
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries (optional; I might have used raisins, but my breakfast guest was a raisin-hater)

Directions

1. Centre oven rack and preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare pears/apples as stated above.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, ginger (I used pumpkin pie spice), and salt in small bowl.
3. Use an electric mixer/stand mixer to blend butter and sugar together (medium speed). Mixture will resemble wet sand. Add egg and vanilla and blend for about five minutes until fluffy (I totally didn’t do that…I don’t think margarine gets “fluffy?” I blended until I was bored for about a minute). Add flour mixture and mix by hand just until blended. Batter will be quite stiff.
4. Fold in chopped fruit and half of the nuts, and cranberries/raisins if using. Butter your skillet generously. Dump mixture into prepared skillet and spread it evenly. Arrange apple/pear slices on top and sprinkle with remaining nuts. Sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar on top of the cake.
5. Bake until cake is golden and centre springs back slightly; this took about 45 minutes for me, but Vintage Cakes says it should take 38-40 minutes. You’ll find that the cake continues to bake in the skillet after you take it out of the oven, so don’t over do it, and remember that this is a “pudding” cake. A little bit of indecisiveness as to whether it is “done” is probably a good thing here.
6. Eat that yummy cake! It’s best served on the day it is baked (just try to keep it around longer!). If you want to store it for a few days, check your pulse, then wrap it in the skillet and keep it at room temperature.

Makes 8 small pieces or 6 more reasonably sized pieces.

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 3 large apples, peeled, cored and diced
• 1/4 cup cinnamon sugar mixture (1/4 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon)

Icing Ingredients:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Up to 1 tablespoon milk or water (You want the icing a little thick so it doesn’t just run off the warm cake.)

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray and coat the pan with the 1/4 cup cinnamon sugar mixture.
2. Stir together sugars, oil, apple sauce, eggs and vanilla until well blended.
3. Add flour, baking soda , salt and cinnamon. Stir until it just comes together and everything is moist.
4. Fold in apples.
5. Pour into bundt pan and smooth the top with your spoon. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour, 5 minutes. I poked mine with a long steak knife and when it came out clean, I knew it was done. Mine took 1 hour, 5 minutes.
6. Let sit for 5 minutes and then run a butter knife around the edges and turn onto a plate or cooking rack.
7. Mix together the icing ingredient and stir until smooth. Drizzle over the cake.
8. Enjoy warm or at room temperature. Oh so yummy!