Extra Credit Ann Brettingen’s Swedish Apple Cake

Hooooly geez, this is good.

Now I’m sliiiightly biased (because I friggin’ LOVE baked apples) but if you thought the Swedish Visiting Cake was good, check out this bad boy! It has all the goodies of the SVC with some small nips and tucks.

This mixes up quickly and bakes beautifully. Oh the aroma!! Trust me, it’s good!! Next time I’d add some cinnamon and almond extract just to play around with the flavors a bit.

I’m keeping this post short because I just realized that I never posted my SMS Pecan Shortbread post. Doh!!

Ann Brettingen’s Swedish Apple Cake
– makes 6 generous servings, 10 normal servings –

Ingredients:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 extra-large egg or 1 large egg plus 1 large egg yolk (I used 2 large eggs)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 to 1 1/2 apples (I used 2 Granny Smith), peeled, cored and cut into 1/2-inch thick wedges
Handful of sliced almonds (optional)
Sugar for sprinkling (optional)
Apple, quince or ginger jelly or preserves, for glazing the cake (optional, I used apricot)

Procedure:
1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. (Ann says 345°F, which I did) Generously butter a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate or a similar sized cast-iron skillet (used cast iron skillet).

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl, and keep at hand (set aside).

3. Working in a mixing bowl with the whisk, beat the egg(s) and sugar together until thick and pale. Stir in the vanilla, if you’re using it, and then the melted butter. The mixture will be smooth and shiny. Stir in the dry ingredients and scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Top with the apples, making a spiral pattern. Leave some space between each slice, so the batter can puff up between the wedges – it looks much nicer with the puffs. Scatter sliced almonds on top, sprinkle with a bit of sugar.

4. Slide the pan into the oven and bake for about 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the cake comes out clean. Transfer the cake to a cooling rack.

5. If you want to glaze the cake, warm a few spoonfuls of jelly and a splash of water in a microwave oven (or a saucepan) until the jelly liquefies. Brush the jelly over the hot cake.

6. Let the cake cool for at least 15 minutes, or wait until it reaches room temperature, before you cut it into wedges to serve.

Storing: Cooled and covered, the cake will keep overnight at room temperature, but it’s best served shortly after it’s baked.

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SMS – Apple Orchard Pecan (and almond) Crumble

Sometimes my train of thought makes no sense to anyone but me. And it ALWAYS makes perfect sense in my head. It’s that when I write it down that I realize how randomly scattered my thoughts are and I must find the link that connects them all.

I wrote it down and then edited it and then deleted it only to attempt it again. Without any chance of you understanding what the hell I was talking about. So I warn you… this might make NO sense 😀

I’m going to link celery to crumbles. Stay with me….

I had these vivid flashbacks of eating a red version of celery with sugar as a child —> I set out to find what this “red celery-like” fruit/veggie/whatever was —> Fall upon a rhubarb crumble recipe and have an epiphany —> Aha! Its friggin rhubarb —> Scour the internets for a ridiculous amount of rhubarb recipes in light of said epiphany —> Run to numerous stores over the course of a few months searching for rhubarb and find none. NONE! —> Finally give up the witch hunt for rhubarb and sulk, sadly —> Pick up frozen bag of blueberries and almost fall to my knees with joy of finding a bag of rhubarb —> Purchase ramekins for personal sized crumbles for the rhubarb —> Never make said crumble —> Pine incessantly over wanting crumbles —> Reads this week’s SMS recipe —> REJOICE in crumbly euphoria.

Don’t look at me like that… I told you. I waaaaarned you. It makes NO SENSE. Mention crumble and I somehow come up with celery. But this is what runs through my head when I hear the word crumble. It makes sense to me. That’s all that counts, right? RIGHT?!

This crumble is quick to put together (provided you are an expert apple peeler and your nuts are already chopped) and tastes better the next day at room temperature (strictly my opinion). I am sad to report that there was NO VANILLA ICE CREAM or caramel drizzle ANYWHERE in my apartment, therefore my “perfect crumble” dreams…. crumbled. *sigh*

I think my crumble topping went south somewhere because it was more of a uniform-melty-nutty-caramely-crunchy-MASS than what I imagined. BUT maybe that’s what all of you came up with… or maybe I’m just a complete moron who can’t read and thinks of celery when “crumble” is mentioned. 😉

Please visit Cristine’s delightful blog, Cristine Cooks for the recipe. Visit the SMS blogroll to see how the other bakers fared with this crumble.

Please excuse the pictures. It was night-time and there was obviously NO NATURAL LIGHT to speak of.