Bready or Not: French Apple Cake in a Springform Pan
This French Apple Cake is thick with apples, not cake. There’s actually just enough batter to adhere everything together.
The apples are the star, so get good ones. I recommend doing about half Honeycrisp and Pink Ladies, but go for a combo of two good kinds of baking apples. (Not sure which ones are best for baking? Google has lots of recs!)
I’ve had a springform pan for years, but I’ve never used it like I did in 2020. That particular pan makes this cake extra good, too, because it creates a high cake with nicely browned edges.
One thing I’ve noticed about French and Irish apple cakes is that they really emphasize the fruit. American cakes and pies add a lot more spice. As much as I love loading on the cinnamon, it’s refreshing to do a take like this sometimes.
Let the fruit taste… well, fruity. Here, the addition of Calvados or another apple brandy brings that out even more. You don’t end up with an alcohol taste in the final result, but it does draw out more of the apple flavor.
This cake is a great one to slice up and freeze for later, too. Make the goodness last even longer!
Modified from Bake from Scratch September/October 2020 issue.
Bready or Not: French Apple Cake in a Springform Pan
Equipment
- 9-inch springform pan
- uneven spatula
- parchment paper
Ingredients
- 8 large baking apples totaling about 800 grams mix of Honeycrisp and Pink Lady recommended
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 3 large eggs room temperature
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 3 Tablespoons apple brandy use Calvados to make it especially French
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or substitute vanilla extract
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2/3 cup unsalted butter melted and cooled
- 1 Tablespoon sparkling sugar
- Confectioners' sugar for serving
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 350-degrees. Prepare a 9-inch springform pan by cutting a piece of parchment to fit the base. Apple nonstick spray to the pan, then add the parchment, and spray it as well. In addition, tear a piece of aluminum foil to cup the bottom of the pan to catch any drips.
- Peel the apples and chop into 1-inch pieces. Toss with lemon juice. Set aside.
- In a big bowl, beat eggs until they are pale and foamy. Add the white sugar, apple brandy, and vanilla.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the big egg-sugar bowl along with the melted butter. Scrape the bowl as needed, stirring everything until just combined. Don’t expect a huge amount of batter–it’s there to act like delicious glue for all of the apple pieces!
- Reserve 1 heaping cup of the apple chunks. Fold the rest of the apples into the batter, coating them. Dump the mix into the prepared pan and even out with an uneven spatula. Arrange the remaining apples on top, pushing them into the batter and smoothing them out as much as possible.
- Bake for 20 minutes. Add sparkling sugar over the top. Bake another 20 minutes and check on the cake. It is done with apples in middle are tender and a digital thermometer plunged into the center reads at least 200-degrees. If needed, cook longer; if it’s browning too much, cover with foil.
- Let cake cool in pan for 15 minutes on a cooling rack. Carefully release the springform ring to let it completely cool for at least an hour; place in fridge to speed the chilling process, if desired.
- Slice into wedges. Enjoy cold, at room temperature, or warmed, with confectioners' sugar sprinkled over the top. Pieces can also be individually wrapped and frozen for later.
OM NOM NOM!
Book Blog: A Cheesemonger’s History of The British Isles by Ned Palmer
I review everything I read and post reviews on Goodreads and LibraryThing. That’s not enough. Good books are meant to be shared. Therefore, I’m spotlighting some of my favorite reads here on my site.
A Cheesemonger’s History of The British Isles by Ned Palmer
out now in print and ebook; BookShop, B&N, and Amazon [affiliate link]
A fun frolic of a book for those, like me, who love cheese and history! Palmer is a cheesemonger and he knows his subject well, having not only sold the cheese but interacted with and even made cheese with the small-operation makers. There’s no snobbery here, though–the mood of the book is enthusiastic for cheese. That’s something I can totally get behind.
There is mild overlap with some other books on cheese, notably Kinstedt’s Cheese and Culture, but not that much, as Palmer goes much deeper into historical British cheese than any other book I have read. He hones in on some specific cheeses like Wensleydale, Cheshire (new life goal: become a cheese pirate), and Lanark Blue to explore the revolution of cheese as a food and as an industry, bringing the narrative right up to the present day. The book is fascinating throughout, a breezy read that is also informative. I felt the need to share factoids with my husband as I read in the evening.
I highly recommend this book to other cheese lovers, but be warned–if you’re not in the UK, it will torment you to read about so many cheeses that are not readily found abroad! Oh, how I yearn to find that Stonebeck cheese…
Read MoreBready or Not: Shortcut Overnight Sourdough Starter and Soft White Dinner Rolls using Sourdough Starter
It’s easy to make sourdough bread even if you don’t maintain a sourdough starter thanks to the shortcut on Bready or Not today. Use this Shortcut Overnight Sourdough Starter with any recipe, or to make the accompanying recipe for Soft White Dinner Rolls using Sourdough Starter!
A lot of people maintained a sourdough ‘mother’ during 2020. A lot of people no longer do. Maintaining a starter takes effort, and it’s easy to forget to feed or discard as necessary.
That’s why these recipes today are so great. With a day of planning, you can whip up 1 cup of starter. Use it to make rolls, or anything else that requires 1 cup of starter.
Then, ta-da! You get delicious bread, and without the fuss of a starter.
These rolls are fantastic, too. My husband declared them to be about the best homemade bread ever, which is really saying something.
Bready or Not: Shortcut Overnight Sourdough Starter
Equipment
- large jar or medium bowl
- plastic wrap or towel
Ingredients
- 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
- 3/4 cup water
- 1 teaspoon honey or sugar
- 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour or whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
Instructions
- Mix all ingredients in a jar or bowl; make sure the starter has room to grow, as it will double in size! Cover with plastic wrap or towel, and let sit at room temperature overnight. Use in baking the next day.
OM NOM NOM!
Bready or Not: Soft White Dinner Rolls using Sourdough Starter
Equipment
- kitchen scale
- basting brush
- 2 cake pans or rimmed baking sheet
Ingredients
Dough
- 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
- 2 Tablespoons white sugar
- 2/3 cup milk or half & half warmed (no higher than 110-degrees)
- 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter (half stick) melted and cooled
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 cup sourdough discard about 8 oz
- 2 Tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus more if needed
Top
- olive oil
- 1 Tablespoon unsalted butter melted
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together yeast, sugar and warm milk and let sit for a few minutes to activate. Add the cooled-down melted butter followed by the sourdough discard, salt, and cornstarch. If using a stand mixer, switch to a bread hook as the flour is added, a cup at a time, adding more as necessary to reach a soft, workable consistency. The dough should no longer be super-sticky and pull away from the sides of the bowl. Continue to knead for another 5 minutes using a mixer, or up to 10 minutes by hand.
- Add some olive oil to the bowl. Rolls the dough to coat it completely. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a towel to let rise until doubled, 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours; this will take longer if the starter was cold.
- Cut parchment to fit in two 9-inch cake pans or for a rimmed baking rim. Apply nonstick spray on pan and paper.
- Turn out the dough onto the counter and punch it down. Use a kitchen scale to weigh the dough, then divide it into 16 equal portions. Keep a saucer with some water in it nearby to dab in fingers to smooth the dough into a round–the dough may be sticky! Set in prepared pans, giving each roll some space to rise again.
- Cover rolls and set in a warm place for the 2nd rise for about an hour, until doubled in size.
- Preheat at 350-degrees. Bake for 11 minutes, rotate pans, then bake for another 11 to 15 minutes. The tops should be golden; a digital thermometer discreetly plunged into a middle roll should be over 190-degrees.
- Immediately brush melted butter over the tops. Let cool at least 10 minutes before eating. Leftover rolls keep well sealed at room temperature or in the freezer, but they must be eaten hot.
OM NOM NOM!
Book Blog: Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune
I review everything I read and post reviews on Goodreads and LibraryThing. That’s not enough. Good books are meant to be shared. Therefore, I’m spotlighting some of my favorite reads here on my site.
Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune
out now in print and ebook; BookShop, B&N, and Amazon [affiliate link]
I received an advance copy of this book via NetGalley.
The skin around my eyes remains stiff from tears because this book made me SOB, but in the best of ways. This is a beautiful, extraordinary book that will crush your heart and put it back together, too.
Wallace is a jerk. He’s like Scrooge brought into the modern-day–a high-powered lawyer who is callous, cold, and not the slightest bit loved. When he keels over dead, he attends his own funeral and rages, unseen, at the way his ex-wife and law firm partners disrespect him. A reaper arrives–a young woman, Mei, who can see and hear him, and takes him to a strange tea house in the middle of nowhere. It’s a waypoint for the recently dead to come to grips with their new state of being before they move on through a door set in the fourth-floor ceiling. The purveyor is Hugo, a man with a knack to choose the right tea for anyone–and also, a ferryman, a person with a genuine, empathetic heart. He helps the recently-dead move on.
But Wallace doesn’t want to move on. He stays. He rages, he grieves, and slowly, he starts to change. And fall in love.
I fell in love, too, with every character. The deep feels of this book remind me of Becky Chambers’s novels–stories that truly capture the complexity and the goodness of people and somehow manage to reaffirm your belief in humanity. I like that this took the Scrooge trope and made it more realistic–there’s no overnight change. It’s gradual, it’s painful, it’s full of regret. Ultimately, it’s a queer love story, too, and again, one that feels realistic (because honestly, anyone and everyone can and will fall in love with Hugo).
This will be one of the best books I’ve read this year, and probably an all-time favorite.
Read More
