Sunken Apple Cake

Thanks to my lovely roommates, I have been able to play with apples a bit recently. Still no turnovers, but after searching for “Apfelkuchen”  - apple cake in German, I was looking for a recipe I only vaguely remembered, I found something that looked interesting.
I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, but this was similar and looked pretty good. It’s something I’ve seen in my mother’s recipe collection, but only ever in German. The author had kindly translated the measurements from weights into volume, and the ingredients are pretty simple, so it was easy enough to try it out. 

What took longest was waiting for the butter to warm up. I suppose I could have microwaved it for a few seconds, or planned ahead. Though that last one is difficult when spontaneously deciding. It’s a pretty good guess though that butter might  be involved when one is thinking “I think I might like a cake”. I should keep that in mind. And stop keeping butter in the fridge. Nobody minds if I just leave a few pounds on the kitchen table at all times, just in case, right?

So, Sunken Apple Cake, directly translated from the German, Versunkener Apfelkuchen. You don’t actually “sink” the apples, the effect is caused by the batter rising around the apples while baking. It looks quite pretty and will probably confuse people that haven’t seen anything like this before (“How did you get the apples in there like that?”), but it’s not really all that complicated. 

Now it all makes sense?

I’ve been playing with it a bit, I didn’t use the apple halves as directed in the recipe, I sliced the apples thinner, but put them in facing the same direction that they would have been, had I used apple halves. You could probably have some fun creating shapes and patterns.The original recipe suggests 8 apples, I have managed to squeeze in two. This could have something to do with the size of the apples (my first cake only had one rather large apple in it), or the fact that halves can be placed a little differently, I am not sure. If anyone tries it out, let me know how it goes!

To not end up with a silly amount of peeled and cut apples (which is really just an excuse to bake more!), I went one at a time, placing the slices into the batter as I cut them. In two of the three cakes, I had some apple left over, but if you can’t figure out a way to dispose of a quarter of an apple...well, why you would be making an apple cake when you don’t like eating apples?
Doing this with pears (or any other fruit) might be worth trying as well. I’ll let you know, when I run out of apples. Which, delightfully, might take a while.

Sunken Apple Cake
⅔ cup butter, room temperature
⅔ cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt (leave this out completely if you are using salted butter)
1-? apples

Beat the butter and the sugar until the mixture is somewhat fluffy. 

This was just the butter

Beat in the eggs and the vanilla extract, one at a time.

 Vanilla

Egg 1

Egg 2

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt, then add these to the wet mixture gently.
Pour the batter into a greased pan and even things out with a spatula.

Start preheating the oven to 350°F.
Peel and slice your apples, and arrange them in your desired pattern on the batter. You can push them in a little, they should stay where you put them fairly well.

Bake at 350°F for 25-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean or with only a few crumbs.
If you like, you can put a teaspoon of powdered sugar into a sieve (or sifter) and shake that over the cake.

It’s good warm or cold, no need to wait until it’s completely cooled off if you don’t want to.

Enjoy with tea. Or your beverage of choice.

And here again, without all the photos (I just realized they might just be distracting!)

Sunken Apple Cake

⅔ cup butter, room temperature
⅔ cup sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt (leave this out completely if you are using salted butter)
1-? apples

Beat the butter and the sugar until the mixture is somewhat fluffy. Beat in the eggs and the vanilla extract, one at a time.
In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt, then add these to the wet mixture gently.
Pour the batter into a greased pan and even things out with a spatula.
Start preheating the oven to 350°F.
Peel and slice your apples, and arrange them in your desired pattern on the batter. You can push them in a little, they should stay where you put them fairly well.
Bake at 350°F for 25-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean or with only a few crumbs.
If you like, you can put a teaspoon of powdered sugar into a sieve (or sifter) and shake that over the cake. It’s good warm or cold.