This isn’t just a cake; it’s a recipe for when you have an abundance of apples. This Italian apple cake, a favorite of my grandmother, is the perfect solution for a plentiful harvest. Its genius lies in its simplicity: a dessert made with more apples than cake, where the fruit is the star.
This is the first recipe in our series, “The Apple & Pear Pantry,” where we’ll show you how to transform fresh, simple ingredients into extraordinary desserts. We’ll explore recipes designed for when you have a lot of apples or pears, from quick tarts to traditional pies.
Stay tuned for more recipes in this series, including a pear crumble for overripe fruit, a 15-minute apple tart, and a traditional, slow-baked apple pie and an apple meringe pudding.
To print the recipe:
Ingredients
5 apples (2 lb – 1 kg)
½ lemon juice half of a whole lemon juiced
½ cup – 100 gr butter at room temperature
½ cup – 100 gr caster sugar
2 fresh eggs
1 ½ cup flour 8.8 oz – 250 gr (if your batter is too dry, try measuring the flour in oz instead of cups)
4 teaspoon baking powder
For The Topping
¼ cup butter (50 gr)
¼ cup caster sugar (50 gr)
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Is there a cake in these apples?
Welcome to Your Guardian Chef, your angel in the kitchen!
And I am the Devil in the Kitchen. I represent every online misconception about
Italian cooking, and I’m here to offer you the most popular culinary sins
as irresistible solutions. Today, we’re starting a new series about desserts
made with plenty of fresh apples or pears. We all love desserts, but often they’re
loaded with sugar, butter, and guilt. So, we are going back in time in the
Italian countryside where fruit was the main protagonist and the cake batter
was just a supporting character. Over the next few days, I will be sharing five
Italian recipes, each one with its own purpose. We’ll find a way to use up
overripe pears or apples using only ingredients you probably
already have in your pantry. We’ll also make the easiest and
quickest apple cake you’ve ever seen. Looking back to tradition, we’ll rediscover
an old apple cake recipe that was slowly cooked for three hours with the fire
from the stove during the winter. Our last recipe is a mousse more
than a cake, made with no flour: an apple meringue covered with caramel.
So subscribe to this channel if you don t want to miss the series.
So follow me if you do not want to miss the series (this is for Instagram)
Let’s start with the first recipe, a cake made mostly with apples.
It was my grandmother’s favorite. She found it printed in her agenda from the 1950s, right after the war, when
food was still scarce. While my grandmother marked this cake
with her handwritten “BUONA!” there was no comment on the rest of the menu.
In fact, the other recipes on the agenda were not the most appetizing, and
we will check those out at the end I am curious to know how
many of you would eat them. This cake instead was an ingenious solution.
It was more apples than cake, making it an achievable dessert because apple trees
in the countryside were so plentiful. These are the ingredients you need. The
measurements are in the description below, and you can find and print the full detailed
recipe on my blog on the link above! Make sure the butter is at room temperature.
Devil: “I tried it and it came out too dry!” A dry cake is a common baking problem if
you are measuring your dry ingredients with cups instead of using a scale.
In Italy, we always weigh our dry ingredients because it’s a much more precise measurement,
which is especially important for baking. However, with such a large
amount of apples in this cake, it is like saying a crumble is too dry.
The apples should be pushed down into the batter before baking.
As the cake cooks, they will release their natural juices, which
soften the batter from the inside out. We start by peeling and chopping
the apples in large chunks. To prevent them from turning
brown, mix them with lemon juice You can use any apples you like,
I usually use Granny Smith. We are not adding any spices like
cinnamon nutmeg, but it is up to you. You can already start warming up the oven to
355 F 180C, the batter is very easy to make. Prepare the pan by covering the
bottom with parchment paper and/or coating it with butter and flour.
In an electric mixer, beat the butter with the sugar until it is fluffy.
Be careful, we are not adding all the butter and sugar, we are leaving some for the topping.
Then add to the mixture the eggs one at the time. Making sure they are well
combined before adding the next. Mix the flour with the baking powder and the
vanilla extract and stir it into the cake batter. Pour the batter into the prepared
pan and spread it evenly. Now you top it with the apples
by pushing them into the batter. Devil, if your cake was too dry, it means
the apples were not pushed down far enough, so they couldn’t do their job.
Now we make the topping by mixing the remaining melted butter into the
sugar and pour it over the apples. Bake for about 1 hour and 10 minutes
Checking if the cake is cooked with a toothpick; it should come out clean.
Let the cake cool completely before removing it from the pan
If you didn t add any spices, you will have a creamy center with
a delicate taste of vanilla apples. You can enjoy it for the next couple
of days, I love it for breakfast Next on the series, you can check
our next recipe to make with overripe pear in the video right here.
But don t forget to subscribe so you don t miss the rest of the series
of Italian recipes with apples. So do you want to know what was the
rest of the menu in the agenda? * Country style risotto:
probably with garden vegetables * Tongue and ham in jelly
* Tagliatelle soup: interesting * Boiled beef and calf head
* For dessert the Apple cake So let me know in the comment below, would
you eat tongue and ham in jelly or the boiled beef and calf head?
Well, I do! Yum!
Dining and Cooking