Saturday, January 3, 2009

Cooking: Apple Cake



What to do when  you have a crisper drawer full of apples of an unknown provenance? The first thing that came to my mind was "Apple Cake."

I wanted a cake that was mostly apples held together by a matrix of cake, so I started consulting my various cookbooks. After striking out with many, I remembered Richard Sax's book Classic Home Desserts and, voilà, there were three recipes.

I chose the one named "Margaret's Apple Cake," although my friend of the same name would undoubtedly shudder at the use of white sugar and unbleached flour. I share life with someone who likes white sugar and flour, so I buy the best quality organic sugar and flour I can find and try to substitute healthier ingredients when I think I can get away with it. This didn't seem like one of those times.

The cake came out great, moist and flavorful, and was even better with some vanilla ice cream.

2 comments:

  1. I'm appalled. And hungry.

    I do also think that unrefined sugar tastes a lot better than refined sugar in any recipe, and particularly with apples, so I would try a Billington's sugar next time. I always go for the dark molasses, but there's a lighter one too that would be good. And I bet palm sugar would be tasty with apples. And as for the flour, is there really any excuse for not using whole wheat flour? Seriously. :D

    When's dinner?

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  2. Thanks for the sugar substitution suggestions. As for replacing all of the flour with whole wheat, well, that usually results in a pretty leaden result in my experience. I might try replacing half of the flour with whole wheat pastry flour, though, although JO's whole-grain detector is strong and vocal!

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