Rising to Expectations?: Huckleberry's Whole-Wheat Apple Butter Cake

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of the Los Angeles Times Culinary S.O.S. column, a regular food section feature that shares restaurant recipes that have been requested by readers.  In the baked goods category, the column has a very strong track record.  So I was psyched when I saw a Daily Dish blog post at the beginning of the month by Noelle Carter -- author of the Culinary S.O.S. column -- stating that the paper would soon be running a recipe for an apple butter cake that was one of the best cakes Carter had ever had... in her life. 

Thankfully, she didn't keep me waiting too long, as the recipe ran in last week's column.  The recipe comes from Huckleberry Cafe in Santa Monica, also the source of a zucchini tea cake recipe that was featured in Culinary S.O.S. last year.  The "Whole-Wheat Apple Butter Cake" doesn't sound like anything terribly special.  But if you read through this recipe, it has several remarkable features.  The cake contains four types of flours -- all-purpose flour, whole-wheat flour, cornmeal, and almond meal.  Before you start thinking that the whole-wheat flour and pound and a half of apples make this some sort of health food, keep in mind that the cake also contains a full pound (!) of butter, more than a pound of sugar (!), and eight (!) eggs. 

To make this cake, you cook diced apples in butter with some sugar and salt just until softened, and set them aside to cool.  Meanwhile, you cream the pound of butter, beat in the sugar, add in the eggs and vanilla, gradually incorporate the sifted dry ingredients (the four flours, plus salt and baking powder), and finally fold in the cooled apples.  

I made this cake earlier in the week, and about 15 minutes after I put the cake into the oven (the cake takes 90 minutes to bake), I realized a grievous error; I had forgotten to add the salt and baking powder.  Given that it was too late to do anything about it, I finished baking the cake, and much to my surprise, it did rise a good bit.  The finished cake actually looked fine, had an okay texture, and was edible -- but it tasted bland.  

I made the cake again the following day, making sure not to leave out any of the ingredients.  The cake rose right to the top of the pan -- noticeably higher than my previous attempt.  The finished cake is heavy and enormous -- ten inches in diameter, and a full three inches high -- which helps explain why it calls for such massive amounts of sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla (two tablespoons!).  Do not try making this in a smaller pan or a 10-inch pan that isn't at least three inches high -- you will be sorry!

The texture of this cake is dense but very moist, and the large pieces of cooked apple were soft. You are supposed to sprinkle the top of the cake with three tablespoons of sugar before baking.  I used coarse sugar for this purpose, and the top of the cake turned out marvelously crunchy and delicious -- a perfect pairing with the rest of the cake, which was not particularly sweet.  It's hard for me to describe the flavor of this cake.  It wasn't predominantly butter, almond, vanilla, or apple -- I suppose it was a mélange of its many different components.  Tom opined that he didn't like the apples, and he thought that the ratio of cake to crunchy topping was too high (i.e. he would have preferred a shorter cake). 

To be honest, I wasn't in love with this cake.  It's good, but I certainly wouldn't put it in the category of one of the best cakes I've ever tasted.  I'm a little bummed this cake didn't quite meet my high expectations, but I'm glad I gave it a try!

Recipe: "Whole-Wheat Apple Butter Cake" from Huckleberry Cafe, printed in the February 10, 2011 Los Angeles Times.