Friday 11 March 2005

German Apple Cake

I was so delighted when I discovered that my local library are stocking a lot of my coveted cookbooks. My youngest had their nursery class that day at the children's section. So to while away my next 2 hours, I wandered off in the cookery section. You could just imagine how wide-eyed I was seeing rows and rows of bookshelves filled with my beloved cookbooks. The sight of the latest of these really excited me. Woo hoo! Even the Twelve: A Tuscan Cookbook by Tessa Kiros and the latest of the celeb chefs were there! I don't have to buy them - fantastic! Sorry if I sound pathetic but I'm the type of person who has cookbooks for bedside reading.
Among my finds is this recipe from Sue Lawrence's Book of Baking. My son was nagging me on making something out of our batch of apples sitting on the kitchen counter. I already made an apple pie and apple cake. Baking something new would be most welcome what with my tiredness of baking the same thing over and over. Anyway, this is quite easy to do. I'm not sure why it's called 'German' but it's basically cake layers sandwiching chopped apples and raisins tossed in sugar and cinnamon. Easy peasy. No alteration was required since the dough and the apple filling was spiced and sugared just right. Of course it met the approval of my son, the baked apple product critic, so it must be good. Nice to have warm slices of this with your afternoon tea of Earl Grey.



German Apple Cake

100 g  unsalted butter - melted
100 g  (1/2 cup) golden granulated sugar
200 g  (1 3/4 cup) self raising flour - sifted
1 large egg
500 g  (3-4) cooking apples - peeled, cored, and sliced/chopped
55 g  (1/3 cup) raisins
1 tsp ground cinnamon
55 g  (1/4 cup) demerara sugar
  1. Preheat oven at 375°F/190°C/fan 170°C. Butter 18cm/7-inch springform pan.
  2. Add sugar, flour, egg, and pinch of salt to the melted butter. Mix well.
  3. Place 2/3 of the dough in the base of the greased pan. Press lightly.
  4. Mix apple, raisins, cinnamon, and demerara sugar in a bowl. Put in the pan, pressing lightly making sure that it's level.
  5. Shape the remaining dough into a ball and press flat roughly in a circular shape on a greaseproof paper or cling film. Place the flattened dough on top of the apple mixture in the pan. Very lightly press down making sure that the dough more or less covers the whole of the pan.
  6. Bake in oven for 1 hour; cover lightly with foil in the last 10 minutes.
  7. Cool in pan for 20 minutes. Serve warm or cold.

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