Smarter Living: Recipes

Ditch the cakemix and make your own delicious cake from scratch with fresh, local ingredients!

Makes one 10-inch cake

Ingredients

For the Apples:

• 5 Granny Smith apples
• Half cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 ounces butter
  

For the Cake:

• Half cup sliced almonds
• Three quarter cup sugar
• One and one half cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 4 ounces butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup crème fraîche

Method

Making the caramel

1. Combine the sugar, lemon juice and one quarter cup of water in a saucepan and stir until completely dissolved.
2. Melt the sugar over medium heat. Allow the sugar to simmer and darken (caramelize), about 15 minutes.
3. Add the butter, swirl to melt then transfer the mixture to a medium skillet.

Caramelizing the apples

1. Peel and core the apples.
2. Cut each into 8 pieces and add them to the caramel.
3. Add another one quarter cup of water and bring the caramel back to a gentle simmer over medium-low heat.
4. Cook the apples until they are very tender, about 20 minutes.

Arrange the apples in a 10-inch spring form pan so they completely cover the bottom. Pour the caramel over the apples.

1. Making the cake
2. Preheat the oven to 350.
3. Pulse the almonds in a food processor together with one quarter cup of sugar and continue pulsing until the mixture is finely ground.
4. Combine the ground almonds with the flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
5. In a mixer, cream the butter with the remaining half cup of sugar.
6. Mix in the eggs, one at a time, and then add the vanilla extract.
7. With the mixer on low, add first one third of the flour mixture to the creamed butter then one-third of the crème fraîche. Repeat until all the ingredients have been combined.
8. Spoon the batter over the apples then bake until the cake is springy and passes the toothpick test, about 40 minutes.
9. Remove the cake from the oven and invert (apple side up) onto a cake rack to cool.
10. Cut in wedges and serve.

last revised 8/9/2011