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| Treasure Island Books |
| Specializing in quality used and out-of-print books since the Twentieth Century |
www.treasureislandbooks.net website contents copyright 2006 - 2008 by Dale and Tess Wentz, dba Treasure Island Books unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved |
| Goodies for You! |
| Tess' Apple Cake One of the best parts of the holiday season is the goodies, so here's my favorite cake recipe I'd like to share with you. You'll discover this cake will impress your relatives and friends when you tell them you made it from scratch, especially if "baking a cake" to you means opening a box or going to a bakery. This is a dense, moist, rustic cake and is easy to make. Don't save it just for the holidays. It travels well for picnics and potlucks (in or out of its pan), is great for breakfast, freezes well, and best of all, you can alter the recipe to make it all your own. Give it a try...play around with it...and try not to eat it all at once! The Fruit:
1 cup toasted, chopped walnuts 1 to 1-1/2 cups golden raisins or chopped dates (that's an 8-ounce package of dates) I usually use one Braeburn and two Granny Smith apples for the variety of sweet and tart flavors as well as how they will react to cooking. The Braeburn will mostly remain firm while the Granny Smith will "dissolve." If you choose to grind some or all of the apples in your food processor, the texture of the cake will be less bumpy. Use any kind of cooking apples you like or have available. Toss the apples IN A LARGE BOWL with about 1/8 cup of lemon juice to keep them from turning brown while you continue with the recipe and also a 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt to draw out some of the moisture from the apples and make them a bit juicier. To toast the walnuts: Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or foil and spread the walnuts out in a single layer. Set a timer for six minutes and toast in a 350-degree oven, stirring the nuts about three minutes into the toasting time. They're done when you just start to smell the fragrance of toasted nuts and they become deeper in color. You may need to give them another minute or two depending upon the reliability of your oven, but don't let them go too long or they'll burn and turn bitter, and then there's no saving them. Chop the cooled walnuts in a food processor or by hand until they are in small pieces (or medium if you prefer bigger pieces of nuts in your cake), or you can do this before toasting. If the raisins aren't soft out of the box, microwave them in a glass dish with a little bit of water for a minute or two to plump them up. Be sure to drain them before using. You don't need to do this for the chopped dates, which seem to be able to soften-up more while baking than raisins do. Toss the walnuts and the raisins in with the apples; mix thoroughly. The Batter: Mix together in a medium bowl:
1-1/2 cups white sugar (or 1 cup white sugar plus 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar) 2 large beaten eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/2 cup half-and-half or whole milk (2% milk is okay) 1/4 cup apple juice or orange juice Starting with the butter then the sugar then the eggs is easiest. I use a wire whisk for this part. Mix the wet ingredients INTO the large bowl of fruit. In a separate large bowl mix together thoroughly (again, a wire whisk is great for this):
1 teaspoon kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 2 teaspoons baking soda 2 to 3 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon nutmeg in the batter if you mix about half the dry ingredients into the fruit mixture, FOLDING it gently in instead of stirring, then mixing the second half in. If you have a little bit of dry ingredients showing after you've mixed gently but thoroughly, that's okay because the batter will absorb them when baking. Just make sure that most of the batter is thoroughly mixed. If you want to eliminate the gluten problem altogether, use cake flour. You may find that your batter will be rather dry. If so, add more milk or juice a bit at a time until the batter is easier to stir but not so wet that it appears runny. You want it to be about half-way between the consistency of a muffin batter and a pancake batter. If you goof and your batter is runny, sift in a bit of flour until it's the consistency it should be. By mixing the fruit and nuts together, combining the wet ingredients and mixing them into the fruit, then combining the dry ingredients and mixing into the combined mixture of fruit and wet ingredients, you'll find that the batter will come together MUCH easier than mixing the wet into the dry and then adding the fruit. A LOT of experimentation led me to figuring this out! Baking: Liberally oil your cake pans with a vegetable oil or shortening. I prefer to use an "aerosol" type of spray oil. Don't use olive oil or butter! Butter has water in it and can prevent the bottom of your cake from browning; it also might burn in the pan. Olive oil will just make the cake taste odd. Don't dust them with flour! This recipe will fit into a Bundt cake pan, a 9" X 12" pan, two 8" X 8" pans, or four to five mini loaf pans. You could use cupcake pans too; the number of them will result from how big the cupcake size is and how much batter you put into each cup. Try to avoid filling any pan more than 3/4 of the way. Depending upon how well-chopped your fruit is, you may need to smooth the tops of the batter before putting the pan(s) into the oven. Bake at 350 degrees for:
35 to 40 minutes using a 9" X 12" pan or two 8" X 8" pans or mini loaf pans Approximately 30 minutes using cupcake pans This will help the cake to bake evenly. Test the cake for doneness using a toothpick or bamboo skewer. You may find that you'll need to adjust your baking times depending upon the size of your pan and what altitude you're at. The Frosting: This cake doesn't really need a frosting; it's moist and sweet enough as it is. You might want to dust the cooled cake with powdered sugar, or frost it lightly with a cream cheese frosting. You may also want to drizzle it lightly with melted white chocolate or some powdered sugar mixed with milk. But all of these are pretty much gilding the lily. The Alterations: This cake is easily altered; make it your own recipe! It's easy to double or even triple this recipe; just make sure you have bowls big enough to accommodate everything! You can use any apples you like, or pears can be substituted or combined with apples. Remember that ripened pears are juicier than apples! You'll need to adjust the liquids accordingly (start by cutting back on the fruit juice a bit; you can always add more if need be). While fresh apples or pears are what I've always used, try canned, drained pears or other canned fruits such as peaches. Try using the drained canned fruit liquid in place of the fruit juice in the recipe. You might even give canned apple pie or cherry pie filling a try. In that case, though, you'd probably want to cut back on the sugar. Again, these are all juicier than apples, so you'll need to adjust the liquids, as noted earlier. Try pecans instead of walnuts or eliminate the nuts altogether if you don't care for them. Skip the nut-toasting step if you prefer. Instead of golden raisins or dates, substitute regular raisins, dried cranberries or any other dried fruit. Or skip them altogether if you're not a dried fruit fan. Turn this into a rustic fruitcake by eliminating the fresh fruit and using a mixture of chopped dried fruits. If you prefer a less-spicy cake, adjust the cinnamon and nutmeg to your taste. You may want to add cloves or just use one spice, or perhaps ginger or allspice. Margarine can be substituted for butter if it's a quality product, but I don't think the cake will taste as good. Don't use diet margarine! |
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| Amazing Toffee THIS RECIPE HAS DISAPPEARED INTO THE INTERNET ETHER...I'LL REPOST IT SOON! |