A few months ago after I made an apple upside-down cake that tasted good but looked like a mess, my fellow baker Louise left a comment about Marcus Samuelsson's apple cake recipe. I finally got around to giving this recipe a try, and it is fantastic.
The recipe calls for two Granny Smith apples with no weight specified. I doubled the recipe to make two cakes and used four Gold Rush and one Stayman Winesap apple; the reason I threw in an extra apple is that my fruit was a bit on the small side. The five apples had a total weight of 775 grams after peeling, coring, and slicing. I cut two of the Gold Rush apples into slices (dicing the remaining three apples and reserving them for the batter) and tossed the slices in a mixture of brown sugar, granulated sugar, and cinnamon.
To make the batter, you beat room temperature butter with brown sugar and granulated sugar until light and fluffy; add an egg; incorporate flour and baking powder; add half-and-half; and fold in the diced apples. I poured the batter into two 9-inch loose-bottomed pans that I had buttered and dusted with dry breadcrumbs. The batter was super thick and I spread it into an even layer before arranging the sliced apples on top. I baked the cakes for 40 minutes and let them cool completely before releasing them from the pans.
I was a little worried when I tried to get the first cake out of the pan. The sides of the cake had already shrunk away from the pan, but the bottom was firmly attached. I tried running a metal spatula underneath the cake and it looked like the bottom portion might be underdone; very wet bits of cake were stuck to the spatula. In the future, I would definitely bake the cakes for a few more minutes, but it turned out that while the bottoms of the cakes were damp, they were cooked through. When I dusted the cakes with powdered sugar, the sugar dissolved immediately on contact with the wet surface of the apple slices but stayed put on the remainder of the cake, creating a pretty pattern that emphasized the radial pattern of the apples.
I love this cake. It's very light and tender. My favorite parts were the chunks of apples in the batter and the apple slices on top. Gold Rush apples hold their shape well and the apples in the cake had a perfect texture that was tender but still retained a little bite. Also, I had roughly diced the apples into chunks that were large enough to deliver big, assertive doses of apple flavor and texture. To me, this cake is all about the apples and the cake itself fades a bit into the background -- although it certainly is tasty as well. The cake was delicate and large crumbs fell off whether you tried to eat it as a hand food or with a fork. Despite the mess, this recipe does a beautiful job of showcasing apples and produces one of my favorite apple cakes ever.
Recipe: "Apple Cake" from New American Table by Marcus Samuelsson, recipe available here.
Previous Post: "My Apples Are Out of Shape: Apple Upside-Down Cake," November 17, 2016.
The recipe calls for two Granny Smith apples with no weight specified. I doubled the recipe to make two cakes and used four Gold Rush and one Stayman Winesap apple; the reason I threw in an extra apple is that my fruit was a bit on the small side. The five apples had a total weight of 775 grams after peeling, coring, and slicing. I cut two of the Gold Rush apples into slices (dicing the remaining three apples and reserving them for the batter) and tossed the slices in a mixture of brown sugar, granulated sugar, and cinnamon.
To make the batter, you beat room temperature butter with brown sugar and granulated sugar until light and fluffy; add an egg; incorporate flour and baking powder; add half-and-half; and fold in the diced apples. I poured the batter into two 9-inch loose-bottomed pans that I had buttered and dusted with dry breadcrumbs. The batter was super thick and I spread it into an even layer before arranging the sliced apples on top. I baked the cakes for 40 minutes and let them cool completely before releasing them from the pans.
Recipe: "Apple Cake" from New American Table by Marcus Samuelsson, recipe available here.
Previous Post: "My Apples Are Out of Shape: Apple Upside-Down Cake," November 17, 2016.
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