My Favorite Apple Cake from Dorie Greenspan

 

My Favorite Apple Cake

Apple 🍎 🍏  cake for dinner?  That would be a yes and thank you very much from me, but I would love a slice anytime, definitely with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.  Especially when the skies are a somber gray and the air is full of ash.  Too unhealthy to walk or play outside but cool enough, no bright sunshine in my California day, to turn on my oven and bake a cake. WE need apple cake.  I recently had a good size harvest from my apple trees.  I gave away several bags of apples to friends and of course left myself a few healthy bowls of apples in the kitchen.  But, now it's time to get serious about a few annual baking projects that I enjoy.  Apple cake along with apple pie are both on top of my pre-fall to do list.  I've been making just the pie fillings bagged up for the freezer but the apple cake is to be sliced and enjoyed today, amen.

I made a few changes to this original recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table so I'll share the adapted recipe here.

Ingredients and Recipe for My Favorite Apple Cake

Serves 8

3/4 cup all purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon apple pie spice

4 large apples, 🍎 🍏 

2 large eggs

3/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoons Calvados 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

8 tablespoons or 1 stick of unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Preheat the oven to 350F

Spray an 8" springform pan with baking spray

Whisk the flour, baking powder, apple pie spice and salt together in a small bowl, set aside.

Peel the apples, cut in half, remove the cores and cut in bite size chunks (1-2")

Whisk the eggs until they're foamy in a medium size bowl, pour in the sugar and whisk for a minute longer.  Whisk in the Calvados and vanilla.

Whisk in half the flour mixture, then half the the melted butter followed by the rest of the flour mixture and the rest of the melted butter, mixing with a firm but gentle hand until you have a smooth thick batter.

Switch to a rubber spatula and mix in the apple chunks, evenly coating the apple chunks with batter.

Dump the apple batter into the prepared pan, pushing the mixture down with a rubber spatula and evenly smoothing the top.

Bake for 55 minutes or until the top is nicely browned.

Transfer to a metal rack and cool for about 5 minutes before running a knife along the edges to release the cake from the springform pan.  Release the sides of the springform pan and continue to cool the cake.  The cake is sticky so you have to carefully remove the bottom of the springform pan from your cooled cake using a long thin cake spatula to release the bottom, place the cake on a serving plate.  I have one of those old fashioned cut glass grandmother's style cake plates,  I love it, it was my grandmothers and I use it all the time, highly recommend acquiring one.  I also use a round marble serving piece for cakes, as shown in the above photo.

The cake may be served slightly warm or at room temperature, both good, did I mention the Calvados is really good in this cake?  Well it is, you'll see.