Apple Lemon Cake

I made an apple cake today. I think I fell in love with apples all over again while in Germany. It seemed as if there were apples, apples, apples everywhere we went (to eat): from the delicious apfelkuchen (apple cakes) sold in the bakeries near our hotel in Frankfurt (which my husband, R, had for breakfast on three consecutive days!) to the red cabbage cooked with apple sauce (I could have this every day!) which accompanied a hearty Bavarian feast in Munich and the delicious apple pastries we had for tea.

So, yes, I suppose it isn't surprising that I bought a bag of apples the day after I arrived home. 

I'm still working on making a great apfelkuchen, which is perhaps best described as a yeasted apple cake with a crumb topping. Sounds delicious, right? It is. But I haven't yet got it quite right. Thankfully, the good thing about apple desserts is even the imperfect versions are delicious to eat!

In the meantime, I decided to blog about this simple apple cake which is really just the perfect coffee cake. Apple desserts usually have cinnamon and/or nutmeg in them but I decided to make this one without either and used just lemon (juice and zest) as a flavour enhancer.  I marinated the apples in a lemon and sugar emulsion for an hour. Then, I thickened the marinade to use as a glaze once the cake was baked. I also added some lemon zest in the batter.

This cake is moist. The milk AND buttermilk in the batter make for a really tender crumb in which the chunks of cooked apples nestle in quite comfortably. Oh, just looking at the cake feels so comforting.

A word of warning though: the acidity of the buttermilk does tend to make the protein in the eggs coagulate slightly - what this means is your batter will look a little curdled. DON'T throw it away. It isn't spoilt, it's just a reaction to the buttermilk. 

Apple and Lemon Cake

5 red apples, skinned, cored and sliced lengthwise.

juice of 1 lemon

150g butter, softened

1 cup castor  sugar

zest of 1 lemon

3 eggs 

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g milk

150g butter milk

275g flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Marinade the apples in lemon juice and 2 tbsp sugar for about an hour. 

Heat over to 170C.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside.

Cream the butter and remaining sugar until pale and light. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat to incorporate the ingredients well. Add the zest and then add in the flour gradually. Finally, add the milk and buttermilk into the batter and mix to incorporate.

Pour the batter into a greased 10-inch springform pan. Arrange the sliced apples on the top of the cake. Pack as much of the apples as you can in. 

Bake for 50-55 mins or until the a tester comes out clean.

While the cake is baking, heat the lemon marinade until it thickens into a syrup. Once the cake is done, spoon the syrup over the cake.

Cool, dust with icing sugar (yeah, so very old fashioned ... but I love it) and serve.

Homemade Jam and Tarts

As a child, I loved, loved, loved jam tarts. Mum didn't make them but once in a while, she'd buy a dozen or so from English Hotbreads, our go-to bakery for birthday cakes and tea time snacks. They sold the most delicious pineapple jam tarts I'd ever tasted and I could wolf down three or four jumbo tarts at one go. Yeah! I'd finish them so quick m mum had to ration the tarts: four each for the three of us kids. Sometimes, I'd steal one (or two) of my sister's share: she wasn't as greedy as me and more generous.

I still love tarts. The combination of tasty, crispy pastry against a sweet, gooey, jam filling is just soooo good. Though I love the pineapple tarts Malaysians have become quite renowned for (I've come to think our Nyonya tarts are among the best in the world), I also like other fruit-jam tarts too. Strawberry, lemon-curd, apple ... comfort food, for sure.

So when I read Dan Lepard's recent post on jam tarts in the Guardian, I was inspired to make some of my own. Lepard uses leftover jam for his tarts but as I don't usually store much jam at home, I had to make my own jam instead. My two favourite jam flavours are apple and strawberry and wouldn't you know it, I had both fruits at home. What luck!

Making jam is really quite simple; definitely easier than it sounds. You dice your fruit and cook it in a little water and some sugar (depending on how sweet your fruit is and how sweet you want your jam) and just let it cook until the fruit softens and the mixture thickens. You can add some corn flour (or pectin) to help thicken the mixture too.

That's a basic recipe/method for jam but you can also add to your flavours by combining ingredients (strawberry and raspberry, apple and citrus...) in a jam compound or you could spice up your jam with ... well, spice. I added some roughly crushed pink peppercorns into my strawberry jam and cinnamon into my apple jam.

I used Lepard's recipe for the crust which I must say produced the best tart crust I have ever made or maybe even tasted. I had to adjust the measurements a little -- a little less water and a little more flour. The pastry was soft but sturdy enough not to crumble en route to your mouth. It has a small measure of icing sugar in it but it's not at all sweet; there is a great balance between the sweetness of the sugar and the saltiness of the butter and the added salt. It was the perfect casing for my mini tarts so, "Thank you, Mr Lepard".

Strawberry and Apple Tarts

For the pastry recipe, refer to Dan Lepard's post in the Guardian.Here's the link.

Strawberry Jam 

24 strawberries, hulled and diced 

1/4 cup sugar (adjust according to taste)

1/2 cup water 

1-2 tsp pink peppercorns, roughly crushed

1 tsp cornflour, diluted in 1 tbsp water 

Put the strawberries, sugar, water and peppercorns in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat over low heat, stirring occasionally. As the mixture begins to boil, cover and leave to simmer, continue to stir from time to time, until the strawberries get really soft and mushy. Using a wooden spoon or a potato masher, roughly mash the softened fruit (you may want to leave some chunky pieces in for texture). Taste for sweetness (add more sugar if you want) and then, just before you're ready to take it off the heat, add the cornflour and stir until the jam thickens. 

Remove and allow to cool.

Apple Jam

2 large apples, skinned, cored and diced

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 cup sugar (approximate, to taste)

1/2 cup water

Add all the ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pan and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally. Cover and cook until the apples soften and can be mashed. Keep stirring until the jam thickens.

Twice removed French Apple Cake

I've been experimenting a lot with apples lately.You see, my husband only likes apple desserts. I am not joking.

I've baked chesescakes, chocolate-cheesecakes, cupcakes, pound cakes and red velvet cakes. The response was always just lukewarm. Nope, actually the response was pretty darn cold. And even though I tell him he HAS to PRETEND to be excited  (cos no cook likes a lackluster response), I get nothing more than a, "Yeah babe, it's tasty". At best.

Hungry for validation, I decided the only way I was going to elicit some enthusiasm was to cook what the man liked. Trying to get him to like what I cook obviously has not worked...

Hence my experiments with apples. I bought a dozen Granny Smith green apples and a half-dozen Fuji reds. I meant business.

Last weekend I made an apple crumble. Turned out ok but the crumble wasn't as crusty as I wanted it. But, guess what? I (or rather the dessert I was holding) was greeted with an ear-to-ear smile ... AND a request for seconds. Whoa. The force is strong in this one after all ...

  

Encouraged, I began thinking of my next project.

I usually visit my bookmarked cooking blog sites for inspiration or ideas and I just happened to click on David Lebowitz's site and would you believe it, his most recent post was on a French Apple Cake. Chance? I don't think so. The recipe he featured was an adaptation of Dorie Greenspan's. She's another of my favourites. Once again: Chance? Nope. I had to make this cake.

This cake will dispel any notion you may have of French cooking: that its complex, difficult, inflexible, too rich or whatever. The recipe for Dorie's French Apple Cake is not only so easy, its uncomplicated. Use four apples she says, doesn't matter which variety.In fact, mix them up if you will. How much easier a recipe get?

So that's what I did. Even though I had plenty of the same variety, I used two Granny Smiths and 3 Fuji reds (3 because they were significantly smaller than the greens). You don't need much else: butter, a little sugar and some flour. Oh. and baking powder, salt and eggs. That's it. The texture of the cake is very moist. So moist you may think it's pudding. Doesn't matter, its just delicious.

Oh. I almost forgot. The cake did the trick and was devoured by the man. But truth be told, making this cake was so satisfying,  it didn't really matter what the reaction was!  Validation? Nope, don't need it ... :)

French Apple Cake

From David Lebowitz, adapted from Dorie Greenspan

3/4 cup (110g) flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

4 large apples 

2 large eggs (at room temperature)

3/4 cup (150g) sugar

3 tbsp dark rum

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

8 tbsp (115g) butter, salted or unsalted, melted and cooled to room temperature

Preheat the oven to180C, make sure the rack is in the center of the oven. Heavily butter a 20-23cm (8 or 9 inch) springform pan and place it on a baking sheet.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Peel and core the apples, then dice them into 3cm or so pieces. In a large bowl, beat the eggs until foamy then whisk in the sugar, then rum and vanilla. If you are not using rum (but, why?), add another portion of vanilla. Whisk in half of the flour mixture, then gently stir in half of the melted butter. Stir in the remaining flour mixture, then the rest of the butter.

Fold in the apple cubes until they’re all well-coated with the batter. Transfer them into the prepared cake pan and smooth the top a little with a spatula.

Bake the cake for 45 mins to an hour or until your tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the cake for about ten minutes before you loosed the edges and remove the sides of the springform pan. Serve with crème fraîche or ice cream!!