CAKE 6: apple torte

a little dry, but still great!

if chris had brought ice cream like he said he would, and if i had thought to bring some caramel sauce, this would have been the perfect dessert. unfortunately, those were both lacking, so it was an OK dessert.

i actually made it look half decent, and i was happy with how it tasted!
i'm posting this late at night and i don't have my recipe book with me, so i can't write down the measurements but i will definitely get that done tomorrow (or as soon as i can!).

the important parts are that it was mostly made of ground almonds, so this is good for people who need to avoid the gluten parts of life. it does call for 2/3 of a cup of all-purpose flour later on in the recipe but you could easily replace that with a little more ground almond. cinnamon was also a nice addition to the torte!

here are pictures to entertain your eyes!

now that i have time to post the recipe, you will need:
1 1/2 sticks of butter
3/4 of a cup of sugar (the recipe calls for superfine, but it's not necessary)
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups of ground almonds
2/3 of a cup of all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
3/4 of a pound of fresh apples, peeled and sliced (i used about 2 medium sized ones)

and that's it!

my recipe book says to use a 9 inch spring form pan, but i decided to use more of a torte shaped pan i saw in the cupboard, as you can see from the photo above. beat together the butter and the sugar until it's smooth and then beat in the eggs. stir in the ground almonds. combine the flour, baking powder, and cinnamon. sift this over the egg mixture and fold it in.

spoon it into the pan you're using and spread it out evenly. arrange the apples on top. but wait! this is where i probably went wrong. while it looked really neat when it was done, because of the pan i used, i probably should have arranged the apples on the bottom, and then covered it with the batter. i think it would work either way, but next time i would like to try it with the apples (or other fruit) in the bottom.

bake it for 45 minutes until it's golden, then cover it with foil and make a tent, and bake it for another 20 minutes. it will rise quite a bit. if you look at the unbaked picture i have above, you will notice the batter only goes about half way up the side of the pan. once it was done, it was slightly over the top of the edge.

you can serve it warm or cold, with ice cream, dusted with confectioners' sugar, or even crème fraîche!

and here is the birthday boy with his cake! i hope you enjoyed it Matt!!!!