invisible apple cake

18 December 2024 at 17:56

A dozen years ago I shared my mother-in-law’s recipe for apple sharlotka (which family just calls “apple thing”), a lightly sweetened apple dessert that’s as much a thick crêpe as it is a cake. It’s got a short ingredient list and is the kind of thing you make on a whim. It’s so rustic and simple, I honestly didn’t expect it to cause a ruckus — it’s not apple pie, crumb cake, or even my mom’s doorstop of an apple cake — but you surprised me. It has over 1000 comments and I’ve seen variations on it all over the internet. So where does this come in? I think of this as Sharlotka 2.0: Fancy Pants Edition.

French Apple Cake

David Lebovitz

By: David

11 November 2024 at 15:42

It’s interesting how many views of Paris there are, which you notice if you follow the variety of voices that write about life in the City of Lights. (A mistake some writers make is to call it the City of Light, and ‘lights’ in actually plural.) I tend to find all the quirks and report on the sardonic side of things, which for some reason, always find their way into my life. But the main reason is that I live in Paris full time and don’t just get to sampe my way through the lovely pastry shops and meet chocolatiers, but like most Parisians, I also spend a fair amount of time wrestling with perplexing bureaucracy and other idioms of life in the City of Fight Light.

For example, last week I went to the largest fabric store in Paris where I always buy étamine (cotton gauze), which I couldn’t locate so I asked a salesperson to direct me there. He was having a nice chat with his co-workers but was kind enough to take a moment to tell me “Non”, they didn’t carry it…and went back to his conversation. After I raised an eyebrow and asked a few more times, just be sure, he and all the others in the group shook their heads, confirming with absolute certainty that they definitely did not have that in stock.

Because I was absolutely certain that they did, I went down one level and, of course, found a huge bolt of it right on top of the pile of other rolls of fabric. C’est comme ça…

Having a French partner helps, and he also helps me in the kitchen, like when Romain arrived with a bag of apples from a friend’s farm in Burgundy. Some were dinged up a bit, as they weren’t from the supermarché, but French apples are delicious for baking, where bumps and bruises magically disappear.

So to keep things in perspective (as best I can…) I like to read other voices from Paris, such as Dorie Greenspan, whose book, Around My French Table, is a hefty collection of her favorite recipes and stories about Paris. She lives on the opposite side of the city, in a different neighborhood. And where I am sometimes defeated by city life, as a “part-time Parisian,” as she often calls herself, she manages to see the good in everything.

This is a very typique French recipe for home cooks, made with not a lot of ingredients, relying on no special techniques or hard-to-find equipment, and loved by all. The cake is easily mixed up in a bowl, scraped into a cake pan, and in less than the time it takes to run to the pâtisserie for a store-bought cake—or a seemingly simple length of fabric—you can have an authentic French cake…right from your own oven.

When a journalist interviewed me for an article about her, she ended the interview with; “So David, what is it like to sit around Dorie’s French table?”

I sat there for a few moments scratching my head to remember, then not sure of what to say, I finally replied, “I’ve not sat around Dorie’s French table.” Which was true. When she comes to Paris, we generally go out exploring. The idea of sitting indoors while Paris awaits just isn’t as interesting to me as sharing pastries on a park bench or hitting an outdoor market with her.

If you want to sit at Dorie’s table, the line starts here. However while you wait, you can feast on her recipes, just as I’m doing.

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French Apple Cake

Adapted from Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan

Dorie doesn’t specify any type of apple but instead advises that you should use a mix of them. I don’t know what kind mine were since Romain brought them to me. The rum is really a great flavor in this cake, but if you’re avoiding alcohol, you could double or triple the vanilla to compensate. I also like this recipe because you can make it with ingredients easily on hand. Being American, I was tempted to add a dusting of ground cinnamon to the apples, but then it wouldn’t be authentically French. Hence I often decide to add a dollop of crème fraîche alongside, but it's wonderful just as it is.

The original recipe uses a springform pan but if you don't have one, you can use an 8-inch (20cm) cake pan, buttering it well and lining the bottom with a circle of parchment paper before adding the batter. I've also make it in a 9-inch (23cm) cake pan and it works well, although it won't be a high.

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Servings 8 cake

Ingredients

3/4 cup (110g) flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
4 (about 2 pounds, 1kg) large apples a mix of varieties
2 large eggs at room temperature
3/4 cup (150g) sugar
3 tablespoons dark rum
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 tablespoons (115g) butter salted or unsalted, melted and cooled to room temperature

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC) and adjust the oven rack to the center of the oven.
Heavily butter an 8-inch (20cm) springform pan and place it on a baking sheet.
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Peel and core the apples, then dice them into 1-inch (3cm) pieces.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs until foamy then whisk in the sugar, then rum and vanilla. Whisk in half of the flour mixture, then gently stir in half of the melted butter
Stir in the remaining flour mixture, then the rest of the butter.
Fold in the apple cubes until they’re well-coated with the batter and scrape them into the prepared cake pan and smooth the top a little with a spatula.
Bake the cake for 50 minute to 1 hour, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. It may take less time, depending on the apples, so check the cake 5 or so minutes before the recommended baking time. Let the cake cool for 5 minutes, then run a knife around the edge to loosen the cake from the pan and carefully remove the sides of the cake pan, making sure no apples are stuck to it.

Notes

Serving: Serve wedges of the cake just by itself, or with crème fraîche or vanilla ice cream.

Storage: The cake will keep for up to three days covered. Since the top is very moist, it’s best to store it under a cake dome or overturned bowl.

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American Baking Ingredients in Paris

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David Lebovitz
Cranberry Chutney 13 December 2023 at 15:17

Cranberry Chutney

David Lebovitz

By: David

13 December 2023 at 15:17

Have you ever gone away for a few weeks and found out that you’d left the freezer door ajar? Well, I did. And let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty.

Before traveling, since I’m anti-gaspillage (against food waste), I jammed whatever I could into my already-stuffed freezer, including a half-eaten tomato tar t, which I thought would be nice to have ready-and-waiting upon my arrival home, partially-used blocks of butter, and the miscellaneous leftover ends of bread that one collects when one constantly buys too much bread. When I returned, I realized that one of those bread pieces had been caught in the door and kept it from sealing closed.

Oddly, the fridge doors have an alarm, which beeps if they’re not completely shut, but the freezer door doesn’t. Coming home to an array of items that were half-frozen, half-defrosted (with gloopy liquid oozing out of them), possibly defrosted and then refrozen, and a few that were unidentifiable, was a bummer.

Some things I knew had to go – like sausages, stock, and a rather moldy half-eaten tomato tart, that I was sure could be reheated when I returned from my travels. (I won’t share a picture of that, but it looked like it needed a good shave.) But I also had several precious bags of cranberries that I’d stashed away for Thanksgiving and while they weren’t completely defrosted, I didn’t want to (or know if I could) refreeze them, so I decided to make chutney…and a whole lotta it.

Fortunately, all my candied and dried fruits were in fine condition and since I was cleaning my freezer, I also did a little purge of my drawers of things that weren’t sparking joy in my kitchen, and cooked them all up with some spices, some honey, orange juice, and vinegar, to make this tangy-tangy condiment.

(Just a note that dried fruits always spark joy in me. But a drawerful of little crinkled up cellophane bags with thirteen raisins or two dried apricots in them, don’t.)

To share my joy with you, I whittled my catastrophe-size recipe down to a reasonable recipe, but you’re welcome to double, triple, or quadruple it. Although it’ll keep for a few weeks in the refrigerator, I had so much that tightly sealed the overload into freezer bags and placed them back in the congélateur. However next time I’m headed out of town, I’m going to make sure my freezer is tightly sealed, because I’d be a bummer to lose those.

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Cranberry Chutney

Feel free to use any type, or combination, of dried fruit. Dates, figs, raisins, apricots, candied ginger, dried cherries, cranberries, pineapples, or other favorites, work well. (Of course, there's no need to chop the raisins or dried cranberries or cherries, if using.) You could also include chopped candied orange or lemon peel in the mix. Any tart apple is fine to use, but if using Golden Delicious apples, make sure to chop them very fine (unless you like chunks of apples in your chutney) as they don't break down as other apples do. If using frozen cranberries, no need to thaw them in advance. Just add them frozen and cook as directed. An interesting addition is to cook the chutney with a very small branch of rosemary. It'll lend an herbaceous note to the chutney. Remove it after the chutney is cooked. Or a tipple of whiskey (or an anise-based spirit, such as pastis) added right before the end of cooking could also be nice.

Course Side Dish

Keyword chutney, cranberry, sauce

Servings 3 cups (750ml)