Birthday Cake
Nov. 10th, 2019 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madbakerThis week's Resolution Recipe: Super Moist Apple Cake with Cinnamon Sugar. (Which I did not in fact make for my birthday)
2 cups sugar, divided
12 Tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 large eggses
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
3/4 cup whole milk
3/4 tsp vanilla (Ha! I used... more.)
3 medium baking apples, peeled, cored, halved, and thinly sliced
3/4 cup cream
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (I used 1 tsp each cassia and true)
Heat oven to 350. Butter a 10" round, 2" deep cake pan and line the bottom with parchment. In a large bowl, beat 1 1/2 cups sugar and butter with an electric mixer until light in color, 3-5 minutes. Alternate mixing in the milk and dry ingredients, scraping bowl as needed. Add vanilla and mix just until smooth; do not overbeat.
Pour batter into prepared pan and spread with a rubber spatula to evenly cover pan. Arrange apple slices in overlapping concentric circles on top of the batter, taking care to completely cover it. Pour cream evenly over the apples.
Stir together remaining 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle mixture over the top of the cake. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 45 minutes. Remove pan from oven, transfer to a rack, and let cool completely.
What worked: It tasted fine. The cake was indeed moist, pudding cake-like in mouth feel. The Tarte Tatin style of apple topping was pretty. I used 1/2 & 1/2 for both the milk and cream and that seemed to work just fine.
It was a reasonably good seasonal cake overall.
What didn't: I used one quince in place of an apple. The quince wasn't really ripe and so it stayed crunchy, even though it was on the bottom of all the fruit. The cake rose more than I expected - past the edge of the pan, and pushed off the fruit in a couple places to bare the cake - so it wasn't as attractive a finish as it might have been.
Finally, despite my heavily greasing the pan, the cake tore a bit. I suppose I should have used a two-piece pan and dropped the outside to remove it. (I don't actually have one, though.) And the very soft cake texture meant that slicing turned it into a mess.
Will I make it again? I don't think so. It wasn't a failure in any way, but nothing makes me want to repeat it.
2 cups sugar, divided
12 Tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 large eggses
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
3/4 cup whole milk
3/4 tsp vanilla (Ha! I used... more.)
3 medium baking apples, peeled, cored, halved, and thinly sliced
3/4 cup cream
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (I used 1 tsp each cassia and true)
Heat oven to 350. Butter a 10" round, 2" deep cake pan and line the bottom with parchment. In a large bowl, beat 1 1/2 cups sugar and butter with an electric mixer until light in color, 3-5 minutes. Alternate mixing in the milk and dry ingredients, scraping bowl as needed. Add vanilla and mix just until smooth; do not overbeat.
Pour batter into prepared pan and spread with a rubber spatula to evenly cover pan. Arrange apple slices in overlapping concentric circles on top of the batter, taking care to completely cover it. Pour cream evenly over the apples.
Stir together remaining 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle mixture over the top of the cake. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 45 minutes. Remove pan from oven, transfer to a rack, and let cool completely.
What worked: It tasted fine. The cake was indeed moist, pudding cake-like in mouth feel. The Tarte Tatin style of apple topping was pretty. I used 1/2 & 1/2 for both the milk and cream and that seemed to work just fine.
It was a reasonably good seasonal cake overall.
What didn't: I used one quince in place of an apple. The quince wasn't really ripe and so it stayed crunchy, even though it was on the bottom of all the fruit. The cake rose more than I expected - past the edge of the pan, and pushed off the fruit in a couple places to bare the cake - so it wasn't as attractive a finish as it might have been.
Finally, despite my heavily greasing the pan, the cake tore a bit. I suppose I should have used a two-piece pan and dropped the outside to remove it. (I don't actually have one, though.) And the very soft cake texture meant that slicing turned it into a mess.
Will I make it again? I don't think so. It wasn't a failure in any way, but nothing makes me want to repeat it.
