And I do mean large. Like, "take these home in two batches because there's too many for you to lift at once" large.
In fact, when I weighed them all out over the course of a week and a half (I've got good turnaround on ingredients, eh?), I came up with no less than forty pounds of end-run, can't-be-sold-even-on-the-discount-cart Red Delicious apples. Battered, bruised, soft and some just too far gone to save, I figured apple pie wouldn't go over well - plus the fact that we still had a pie in the freezer from last October! Why not start with cake, then?? I grabbed my mom's copy of "Germanic Apple Cake" - which calls for 6 big'uns - my tube pan and a knife, then scouted the box to find the 6 fruits with the most integrity left. I knew the bounty would quickly turn into "Apple Week" around here, so I wanted to use recipes that involves as much of them as possible! Which of course, turned into a couple other things I'll be sharing!
So why is this called a Germanic Apple Cake? Good question! I honestly couldn't tell you for sure, since I know for a fact that a) my Mom's family is not German, nor were any of their friends and b) this cake is unlike any other "German Apple Cake" I've seen (and I just spent a good hour getting distracted on Google to figure it out. The closest recipe I've found to my Mom's is the Versunkener Apfelkuchen recipe I found on Epicurious. Considering that it's out of The World of Jewish Desserts, it's a good chance that it is a cake from that region and culture, especially since a good portion of both my parents' friends are Jewish!
Regardless of where this dessert comes from, it is definitely the type of recipe to make if you have a major glut of apples to use up. The whole recipe is basically more "apple" than "cake" in construction, the batter serving little more than as a glue to stick the chunks together. The handwritten recipe I used did use the same blend of whole wheat, all purpose and barley flours for a base, along with oatmeal, but to my version (since I can't leave things alone!) I added flaxseed meal and used leftover packets of instant apple-cinnamon oats instead of plain rolled.
The cake bakes like a dream in the tube pan (which I prefer to a Bundt for sheer ease of unmoulding!) and even a few days later was incredibly rich and moist. With no eggs or dairy in the cake anyways, it's a simple conversion to a vegan dessert too - using agave nectar (ooh, or maple syrup!) in place of the traditional honey. I would definitely suggest looking out for the barley flour for this cake too, but ground up oats or even more wheat flour would work I'm sure.
Germanic Style Apple Bundt
Serves 16
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
3 packets (105 g) apple-cinnamon instant oatmeal (about 1 1/3 cups rolled oats)
1 cup sugar1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup boiling water
3 tbsp agave nectar (or honey)
2/3 cup canola oil
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tbsp maple extract
1 cup flour
1 cup barley flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tbsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
6 large apples, unpeeled, diced
- Preheat oven to 350F, grease a 10" tube pan.
- In a large bowl, combine flaxseed, oatmeal, sugars and boiling water, stirring well. Let stand 10 minutes.
- Add agave, oil, vanilla and maple extract, mixing well.
- Stir in flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, then fold in the apples until well combined.
- Spoon into the prepared pan, smoothing the top.
- Bake 85 minutes, tenting the top with foil after 45 minutes.
- Cool in pan for 40 minutes before turning out onto a rack.
Calories: 316.1
Total Fat: 10.4 g
Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
Sodium: 50.0 mg
Total Carbs: 56.4 g
Dietary Fiber: 5.8 g
Protein: 3.7 g
Good way to use them up! And: I'll bet people ate it right up!
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