The apple (and pear) cake to end all apple cakes

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Man, I really have to get better at this blogging more than once a week thing.  I blame fall, with it's cooler weather not making the world feel like march through the desert and therefore making me want to, you know, do stuff.

But then also fall brings pretty good blog fodder, like the best ever apple cake you will ever have (that is also a GREAT way to use up the ton of apples you seem to have acquired through various methods, hopefully legal, but whatever, I don't know your life).

Every year, we are inundated with apples in the CSA, apples and pears, actually.  This is not really a problem for me, as I love apples and apple pie and apple crisp and all things apple.  However, we have already discussed the fact that my darling husband is not a fan of cooked fruit (because he's wrong, that's why), and so rather than bake an apple pie and then be the only one to eat it, I set out to find out what cooked fruit he WILL eat.

Results? Applesauce (boring),  and this apple cake.  

The cake is essentially a traditional Jewish apple cake, and, this one is a variation of the Smitten Kitchen recipe (SHOCKER). I do a few things differently.  First, I load that thing up with as much fruit as it will hold.  None of this 2 or 3 apples bullshit--we are talking 4 pears and 5 apples.  I like my fruit desserts to have FRUIT.   Second, I've tweaked sugar levels and a bit of methodology to adjust to the massive amounts of fruit I pack in this sucker. 

pears 'n' apples in bowls.  Look how still-life-y it is! I think I may have left one or two apples out, but jammed those pears in the cake. 

I made this nearly every week last year, and am already on track to do the same this fall.  One forewarning--the recipe makes a massive cake.  It calls for a tube pan, which is huge, for a reason.  I've done it in a bundt pan (and had near overflow twice), and I've split it into two loaf pans as well, but it's not quite the same.  If you can, go for the tube pan. 

Also, I have yet to meet anyone who does not like this cake (or my friends are all very kind people and don't want to tell me to my face that it's awful, which is also just fine by me.  I enjoy living my delusions), and routinely give enormous slices away to folks.  I have it on good authority that if you are say, having renovations done on your house, it makes a fine bribe/encouragement/thank you to the folks doing the hard work. And having lived through renos, you really really want those dudes on your side.

Empty bowl, full bowl.  Peeled pears and apples.  Not quite as pretty as the first picture. 

First step, peel your apples and pears.  I can't be the only one who changed her apple-peeling method after seeing Sleepless in Seattle and hearing about how Tom Hanks' wife used to peel the apples in one long curly unbroken string of peel, can I?  That up there, under the pile of pear peels? Are six long, curly, unbroken strings of apple peel. 20 years of practicing right there. 

cinnamonny fruit and vanilla sugar. as you do.

Smitten Kitchen chunks her fruit up, but I'm not a fan of chunks.  I like myself a hearty slice of apple, not too thin, not too thick.  If my apple peeler whizmo worked better on butcher block countertops, this would be the perfect application for that thing--peel, core and slice all in one then just cut the spirally apple into quarters and voila.  Instead, I slice these babies by hand, but I've gotten pretty fast at it by now.

Then you toss the fruit with 1 tablespoon of cinnamon and 5 tablespoons of sugar.  When using pears, I usually grate in a bit of nutmeg, because nutmeg. And of course, I use the vanilla sugar here, because der.  Toss that stuff all together and set aside for later so it gets all nice and juicy.

all the ingredients ready to go.  note please the 4 cup measuring cup used as bowl, because why wash more than you need to?  That sucker has the oil, oj, sugar, eggs and vanilla in there. 

I prefer my cakes to be of the one-bowl variety, because I am lazy.  But barring that, I try to minimize the dishes I can when I can.  And so the flour is weighed, then the baking powder and salt are on top of that.  And I use the 4-cup measuring cup as a bowl, and measure first the oil, then the oj, then add in the sugar (which almost always goes with the wet ingredients), and last the 4 eggs and vanilla.  Beat the crap out of that with a fork and then dump into the drys and stir.

I've cut down the sugar a bit here from 2 cups in the original recipe to 1 1/2, mostly because I use a shit ton of fruit in this cake. If the apples or pears are a bit tart, you can go up a bit.  I've also swapped out half the sugar for brown sugar or maple sugar for a bit of variety.

One last thing about the OJ--it's a great flavor and traditional in this kind of cake, but still somewhat unexpected for something so apple-y.  But if you don't have oj, try cider, apple juice, lemon juice, or anything else relatively flavorful. Booze might be a bit much, but why not try it?

Mixed!

See? One bowl, one measuring cup (and we'll just pretend the apples and pears aren't in another bowl).

The prepped pan.  I like the coconut oil spray from trader joes. 

Spray or butter the tube pan, otherwise it'll be a bitch to get out. Ask me how I know!

first layer of batter + sugared fruit.

In the original method, you pour in about half the batter, layer on half the fruit, then top with the rest of the batter, and then the rest of the fruit.  But I like my fruit scattered throughout, so there are a few ways to do that.  

The first way, and the one I wind up doing the most, is to add more layers.  Spread a little batter, scatter some fruit (including the sugary juices!).  Do it again, spreading the batter a bit with a spatula before adding the fruit.  Keep doing it, adding layers until you run out, but be sure to finish up with the last of the fruit. 

Alternately, pour a bit of batter in the bottom, then dump most of the fruit into the remaining batter, reserving a few handfuls,  and give a stir.  Pour that mixture into the pan, and top with the remaining fruit.  I don't love how the sugary cinnamony juices incorporate into the batter, leaving it somewhat homogeneous and not streaking the final cake with delicious streaks of sugar and cinnamon, so I don't usually go this route.

three more layers later... ready for the oven. 

This pan right here? Weighs about a ton.  

an hour and a 40 minutes later (seriously, it's a big cake).

And then the sucker bakes in a 350 degree oven for--no joke--an hour and a half.  And frankly, longer.  The more fruit you add, the longer it will take to fully set, so don't be shy with a cake tester (or toothpick, or skewer, or sharp knife) and poke that cake to see when the tester comes out dry. Because of the amount of fruit you've packed in there, it's very hard to overbake this cake and have it come out dry. 

mmm cake. 

The cake keeps exceptionally well for several days, also because of the amount of fruit you've packed in there. It only gets better and more moist.  Which is good because it is MASSIVE.

Here's the recipe!

Jewish Apple (and Pear) Cake

  •  6 to 8 (to 10) apples and/or pears, peeled and sliced
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar, plus 5 tbsp, divided
  • 1 tbsp cinnamon
  • 1 cup oil (sunflower, canola, melted coconut oil, melted butter etc)
  • 1/4 cup oj
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 4 large eggs
  • 2 3/4 cups flour (345 grams)
  • 1 tbsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp table salt (or 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt, give or take)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and spray a large tube pan (or bundt pan, or two loaf pans) with non-stick spray. Set aside.

Toss the peeled and sliced apples and pears with 5 tbsp of sugar and 1 tbsp of cinnamon. Set aside.

Mix the oil, oj, vanilla, remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar, and eggs until well combined. 

Stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Dump in the wet ingredients and mix until well combined.

Assemble the cake: spread a bit of batter into the bottom of the pan, add a layer of apples and their juices.  Spread a bit more batter on top, layer on more apples.  Repeat until all batter and apples have been used up, ending with a layer of apples.  Alternately, pour a bit of batter into the bottom of the pan, stir most of the apples into the remaining batter, reserving some for topping, and spread into pan. Top with remaining apples.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 and 1/2 hours to 1 hr 45 min, or until a cake tester inserted into the cake comes out clean. 

Let cool, then remove from pan.  Keeps very well in an airtight container, and is better second and third days. 

 

fruit cake

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Not like, the gross, heavy, holiday fruit cake of December-times.  But a delicious, light, buttery tea cake dotted with fruit (plums, usually).

mmm cake.

Once again, this comes from attempting to use up the CSA's bounty--in this case the fruit share of the CSA.  The problem here, really, is that the man I married doesn't like warm or cooked fruit.  Because . . . um . . .  Ugh, forget it. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW ANYONE COULD NOT LIKE FRUIT DESSERTS. Specific kinds of fruit? Sure, not a problem. Hate on cherries all you want or whatever.  But ALL FRUIT desserts?  Ugh.  

AND YET I NOT ONLY MARRIED HIM, BUT STAYED MARRIED TO HIM FOR A FREAKING DECADE.

And of course, the biggest little is ALSO not a fan of the fruit desserts.  I am holding out hope for the little one, still.

SO ANYWAY.

We had a ton of plums coming our way from the CSA, as per usual.  The biggest little won't eat them straight, and the littlest little only wanted whole plums (which, since these were the tiny sugar plums are like large cherries, with stones.  All kinds of choking hazards), and then would only take one bite.  Sigh. 

I ate a bunch, I gave a ton to our sitter, and then I did what I always do when faced with a cooking dilemma: searched Smitten Kitchen for "plums".  Let me tell you, Deb knows her cooked fruit desserts (BECAUSE SHE IS A SANE MEMBER OF SOCIETY, AHEM, FAMILY MEMBERS WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS.  Also one day I will post about the apple cake recipe from smitten kitchen, which SHOCKINGLY, JBB will eat). Because what I wound up making was this, purple plum torte.  

Originally published in the New York Times by Marion Burros, and then republished by popular demand in the fantastic and highly recommended New York Times Essential Cookbook (affiliate link), edited by the talented Amanda Hesser of Food52 amazingness, it's essentially a very simple butter tea cake (lighter than a pound cake), with halved plums popped on top and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.  The plums sink, the cake rises, and you wind up with a delicious fruit-studded cake that is addictive, moist, and keeps REALLY well.  

Plus, to better to suit my needs? The amount of fruit is adaptable and the recipe is easily memorized. I am nothing if not lazy.  Too lazy to even look up a recipe more than once.

Don't they look so pretty? This isn't all of them.

And then. AND THEN.  Apricots showed up.  A lot of them. And I was flummoxed.  Because while I love dried apricots, they are not my most favorite fruit to eat out of hand.  The littlest little out and out rejected it with a big fat "NO," and a stomping off. I'm not a big jam maker, and while we did have a lot of apricots, we didn't quite have enough to warrant that sort of project.  And so they sat for a few days, slowing growing riper and riper, edging toward overripe. And if no one would eat them, they'd be wasted.

 

And so, with little left to lose, I figured I'd mess with perfection, and tweak the plum cake recipe.  Cause really, cake plus stone fruit, right?  I mean, I could imagine the cake with berries or peaches super easily.  Why not apricots?

But it called for a few more tweaks.  First, I was almost out of sugar, having made the cake a few times.  I did, however, have some leftover maple sugar that just wasn't getting used up.  Maple sugar to me often feels a bit sweeter than the equivalent amount of granulated sugar, so I eased off of the amount slightly.  

Lazy.  And handy!

Second, my previous plum cake was still cooling, and occupying my springform pan, so another pan needed to be found.  9" cake pan, lined with foil. Did I mention the cake freezes beautifully after baking, when wrapped in tin foil and popped into a ziploc? I was going to wrap the sucker up in the foil ANYWAY, so why not line the pan with it first, to make it easier to yank that sucker out of a regular cake pan and have the wrapping all ready to go right there?

(Yes, I did make two of these cakes one right after the other.  I had to finish up the rest of the plums, the mixer was out,  and the butter was already softened and room temp and I'm not about let THAT go to waste you monsters.  Plus the littlest little yelled at me because there was no cake and damnit, he wanted CAKE.  And trains.  And shiny things. And OOOH! A car! A car!  I digress...)

The process for the cake is quite simple, and though I used a kitchenaid, you don't need to use a mixer for it if you don't have one.  Just be sure your butter is room temp, to make things easier on your mixin' arm while creaming the sugar and butter.

First, the butter and sugar(s) are creamed together until light and fluffy.  Because the maple sugar is a bit grainer and slower to dissolve than regular granulated sugar, I followed a tip I picked up from the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook, and let the mixer go for a bit longer than normal to really allow the sugar to fully incorporate and dissolve into the butter.

action shot!

While the mixer is creaming things, measure out your dry ingredients--flour, baking powder and a giant pinch of salt.  I always like to measure my flour with a kitchen scale because a) it's more accurate, b) it's a ton easier to just scoop into a container that's easy to pour from until you hit a number on the scale, c) if you are measuring more than one thing, all you need to do is tare/zero out the scale, and continue measuring ALL IN THE SAME BOWL.  Once again, it all comes down to laziness. I weighed my dry ingredients into a glass measuring cup (which DO NOT measure dry ingredients with a measuring cup for liquids, you will be WAY off the amounts.  Unless you're using a scale), gave it a stir with a fork instead of sifting or whisking.

Add your eggs to the butter and sugar, mix until incorporated, dump in the dry ingredients and stir just til mixed. Dump batter into the pan, and arrange the fruit on top.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar--I used vanilla sugar cause why not?-- and a bit of lemon juice and into the oven it goes for 45 minutes or so.  Less than 15 minutes prep from the start of cutting the fruit. My kind of cake.

so pretty! pre-sprinkling with cinnamon sugar.

The actual recipe with amounts and the like is here:

Maple Apricot Tea Cake

a variation on the famous plum cake. Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, The New York Times Essential Cookbook, and others.

  • 1 cup (125 g.) all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 BIG pinch salt
  • 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons, or 1 stick) butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus 1-2 teaspoons for sprinkling
  • 1/4 cup maple sugar (brown sugar would also be great here--if using brown or white sugar, increase amount to 1/2 cup)
  • 2 eggs
  • 8-12 small apricots, halved and pitted. Or a little less than 1 pound fruit, halved.
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp lemon juice

preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Fetch a 9" springform pan, or if desired line a 9" pan (springform, per recipe, or regular cake pan) with foil. If using a regular cake pan, LINE THE PAN or you won't be able to get the cake out nicely. I sprayed with baking spray, just in case, but it's not necessary.

In a small bowl (or large measuring cup--see above) stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside.  In a mixer, cream the softened butter and granulated and maple sugars until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Lower the speed, and add in the eggs, mixing to incorporate.  

Stir in the dry ingredients, just until incorporated.  Give the batter a stir by hand, and scrape into prepared pan, smoothing the top.  Set the halved fruit, skin side up, on top of the batter.  Sprinkle the fruit with the cinnamon, then the reserved 1-2 tsp of sugar (if your fruit is tart or not fully ripe, use the larger amount), and then sprinkle the lemon juice on top.

Bake for 40-50 minutes, until golden and a toothpick or skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.  Aim for batter, not fruit when testing. Let cool completely in the pan, then remove.  

Better the second day, keeps well covered at room temp.  To freeze, wrap with foil and place in a gallon ziploc bag.