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Apple Cake


maui420

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I have to add my grandmother's apple cake recipe. It's been in our family for years and I've honestly never had a better one. It is a very simple recipe, and produces a VERY moist and dense cake.

1 1/2 C. Canola Oil

2 C. Sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

3 C. sifted flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp cinamon

1 tsp baking soda

1 C. chopped pecans

3 C. finely chopped apples

Cream oil, sugar, eggs, and vanila. Add flour, salt, cinamon and soda. Fold in apples and pecans. Bake in greased and floured bundt pan for 1.5 hours at 350.

-Sounds awfully rich!

-It is! That's why I serve it with ice cream to cut the sweetness!

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This is a very light and moist cake--Bill Neal's Huguenot Torte. The batter has chopped up apples, finely ground pecans and whipped eggs. This linked recipe of his posted online as an excerpt from a recent book "Remembering Bill Neal" is slightly different from the excellent version I can vouch for from "Bill Neal's Southern Cooking". The version I've made uses three eggs rather than two eggs. This cake was one of the signature desserts at Crook's Corner in Chapel Hill when Bill Neal was still alive.

click

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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I haven't tried the Bolzano Apple Cake below, but I've had it bookmarked for a long time because it sounds so good:

But this isn’t just any apple cake. The cake is made of 

apples. I mean the dough (actually more of a batter) is really

only there as connective tissue binding the apples together. This

cake is like a wall of apple.

I hope to make it in the near future.

You can find the recipe by itself from a NY Times page here.

The original recipe, along with many more about apples, comes from the fantastically produced All About Apples, a full-colour cookbook you can download as a PDF.

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  • 5 months later...
There was recently a NY Times recipe for an apple cake that looked very good.  Its from Scott Carlsberg of Lampreia. 

Also I have a good recipe for an apple pudding that gets a warm vanilla sauce poured over it.  Very olde Americana.

I'd be happy to post either recipe.

Hal

You can get the Apple Cake recipe here, in a free ebook in PDF format.

May

Totally More-ish: The New and Improved Foodblog

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My favorite apple cake/bread recipe is from Payard - and the recipe is online here although you may have to sign in with an email address. It's from his book Simply Sensational Desserts. It is excellent and lasts a while if you don't scarf it down all at once :biggrin:

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I want to try some of these recipes; especially the apple crumb kuchen...

There are several good threads on apple cakes and breads; here are a few others I've bookmarked...

apples: an autumnal celebration

apple cakes: favorite recipes

looking for an outstanding apple bread recipe

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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Maida Heatter has one with walnuts and spices. It's wonderful. I've had lots of requests for the recipe each time I've made it. I'll try to find out the name (checked the book out of the library and have returned it.)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I will type my apfelkuchen recipe into the computer (it is on a 50-year-old 5 x 7 file card) and post it later today. I will put it into RecipeGullet also.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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The Double Apple Bundt Cake from the new Dorie Greenspan book (Baking from Home to Yours) is great. It uses 2 apples grated and apple butter. Very moist and apple-y.

So long and thanks for all the fish.
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  • 3 years later...

I'm thinking that with my mandolin slicer and a helping hand to mix the batter, an apple cake would be a nice October snack. I'm thinking of topping one with sesame seeds and chunky Japanese dark brown sugar. I love that apple cake is not as sweet as some other apple desserts.

Anybody else making apple cake?

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there is an apple cake (or as johhnybird's grandmother would say appfle kucken) in the new greenspan book i want to try that is more apple than cake. i have all the ingredients but don't know if i have the time.....

guess i should go upstairs and do it now,

Nothing is better than frying in lard.

Nothing.  Do not quote me on this.

 

Linda Ellerbee

Take Big Bites

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Given a choice, I prefer apple pie over cake, but if my husband is unavailable for crust-making and I'm on my own, I like the Fresh Apple Cake with Caramel Glaze from Peacock & Lewis' Gift of Southern Cooking. It's simple to make, doesn't require a big mixer, and is a little bit gooey; sort of a cross between a tarte tatin and a caramel apple. Only it's a cake. Okay, tarte tatin is a bit of a stretch. And if there are kids around, poking wells in this cake and trying to drizzle the glaze down the holes is a party all by itself. Good warm with ice cream, just as good the next day straight from the fridge. I have cut back on the sugars to make it less sweet. Uses five fresh apples.

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I'm thinking that with my mandolin slicer and a helping hand to mix the batter, an apple cake would be a nice October snack. I'm thinking of topping one with sesame seeds and chunky Japanese dark brown sugar. I love that apple cake is not as sweet as some other apple desserts.

Anybody else making apple cake?

I never would have thought of sesame seeds on apple cake, but now it sounds like a lovely combination, especially with a dark brown sugar.

As a rule I prefer a north-american style apple pie to cake, but I have really liked the apple cake in Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion. I find it a bit unusual in that melted butter is mixed in as the last step, but it makes a lovely cake and is full of apples. I often add cardamom and a few sultanas to it.

There's also a recipe for Rhubarb Cake posted by Chufi in Recipe Gullet (hopefully this link works). It's wonderful with rhubarb, but I've also used apples in it when the rhubarb isn't cooperating and it's been delicious. And just perfect for a small household too.

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My grandmother made an apfelkuchen that was delicious but she never taught me how to make it. I remember she made a yeast dough and put that in a 9x13 pan after it rose. Then she pressed apple slices into the dough in rows. At some point she poured milk or cream over the top, I think before baking (maybe halfway through?). Does this cake sound familiar to anyone? She probably learned how to make it sometime between 1905-1930. Any help would be appreciated.

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I'm no baker, but I made Nigel Slater's English Apple Cake from Kitchen Diaries. I'm reading along with this book each night before bed, trying to keep roughly to his entries. Sure enough, October 16th comes up and he makes an apple cake. And poof! Here's this topic. I know a sign when I see one.

I finally acquired a kitchen scale, and I will say that baking using weights is so much more easier and convenient. I mean, intellectually I knew this beforehand, but it's another thing to actually bake this this way and have it brought home. No hassle, running around the kitchen, trying to find my errant, seldom-used third cup; or trying to make an French 200g block of butter conform to an American "stick". I may only bake from UK books from now on.

Essentially a basic white cake with chunks of apples tossed in brown sugar and cinnamon, it is also topped with a few tablespoons of fresh breadcrumbs. Perhaps that's the "English" part? In honour of the name, I served it with hot bowls of Bird's custard (split vanilla bean added to give it a bit of polish).

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Apple Tart Cake from Molly at Orangette http://orangette.blogspot.com/2009/01/calls-for-cake.html is lovely and it's all about the apples.

Then there's Patricia Wells' The Apple lady's Apple Cake from The Paris Cookbook http://oneperfectbite.blogspot.com/2009/10/apple-lady-apple-cake.html which I've been making for years.

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German baking...I bet somebody here knows just what you are talking about. I would likely use a yogurt topping, but it probably should be sour cream or a custard...how does this Apple Custard Kuchen look to you?

Wow, Helen, this looks closer than anything I've seen yet. I will try it and report back. Thank you.

This certainly sounds like what you describe (except for the crumbs). My grandmother made a cake very similar to what you describe, except that there was no custard, just cream sometimes poured over before eating it. We called it "Dutch Apple Cake" and here is the way I make it. The base was a batter, not a yeast dough.

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