Recently I happened to see a Facebook post from Melissa Clark, who writes the "Good Appetite" column for The New York Times food section. The post promoted her upcoming cookbook Dinner, and when I clicked through to her website, I saw that people who pre-order the cookbook will get a booklet of bonus recipes, including one for an Apple Buttermilk Loaf Cake. Since I had apples and buttermilk on hand, I decided to give the recipe a try.
This is described as a "one-bowl, one-whisk cake," but I decided to make it in the mixer. I combined sugar, buttermilk, eggs, rum, and vanilla; added flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg; and mixed in melted butter and diced Gold Rush apples. I poured the batter into a parchment-lined 8.5-inch by 4.5-inch loaf pan and arranged six apple slices on top. I baked the cake until a toothpick tested clean, cooled it slightly, turned it out of the pan, and let it cool completely on a rack before adding the glaze.
As the cake was in the oven I noticed an intact lemon sitting on the counter. I realized I had forgotten to add lemon zest to the batter and hoped that the oversight wouldn't have much impact. The glaze is simply a mixture of buttermilk and powdered sugar. While the glaze was quite pretty, it obscured the apple slices I had carefully arranged on top of the loaf; if you add the glaze, I think you might as well just dice all of the apples and mix them into the batter.
The texture of the cake was slightly rubbery. And the flavor of the rum was surprisingly strong, even though there was only one tablespoon of alcohol in the batter. I think some lemon zest would have helped considerably to brighten the cake's flavor. I loved the generous amounts of semi-firm diced apple that were evenly distributed throughout the loaf, but overall I thought the cake was pretty meh. Still, it's an easy dessert that you could quickly throw together on a weeknight, so it gets points for ease of preparation. If it were to make it again, I would leave out the rum and be sure to add the zest!
Recipe: "Apple Buttermilk Loaf Cake" by Melissa Clark.
This is described as a "one-bowl, one-whisk cake," but I decided to make it in the mixer. I combined sugar, buttermilk, eggs, rum, and vanilla; added flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg; and mixed in melted butter and diced Gold Rush apples. I poured the batter into a parchment-lined 8.5-inch by 4.5-inch loaf pan and arranged six apple slices on top. I baked the cake until a toothpick tested clean, cooled it slightly, turned it out of the pan, and let it cool completely on a rack before adding the glaze.
The texture of the cake was slightly rubbery. And the flavor of the rum was surprisingly strong, even though there was only one tablespoon of alcohol in the batter. I think some lemon zest would have helped considerably to brighten the cake's flavor. I loved the generous amounts of semi-firm diced apple that were evenly distributed throughout the loaf, but overall I thought the cake was pretty meh. Still, it's an easy dessert that you could quickly throw together on a weeknight, so it gets points for ease of preparation. If it were to make it again, I would leave out the rum and be sure to add the zest!
Recipe: "Apple Buttermilk Loaf Cake" by Melissa Clark.
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