Steffen's Dinners - Recipes and Photos

For the birthday of our son I made an apple cake. This recipe for a "sunken" apple cake ("Versunkener Apfelkuchen" in German) is from my Mom. This cake is simple to prepare, tastes great and is best with sweet apples like Golden Delicious. Fortunately, we have an apple tree in the backyard.

Ingredients

• ca. 2 lbs / 1kg apples (e.g. Golden Delicious)
• 2 oz / 60g granulated sugar
• juice of 1 lemon
• 9 oz / 250g all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking power
• 4½ oz / 125g unsalted butter, softened
• 6 oz / 175g granulated sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• zest of ¼ lemon, finely grated
• ca. 1¼ - 1½ cups / 150-180ml milk, depending on the size of the eggs
• butter and flour for greasing the spring form

Preparation

1. Peel, quarter and core apples. Cut into thin slices, sprinkle with lemon juice immediately to prevent the apples from turning brown. Add 60g sugar, stir carefully, set aside for at least an hour.
2. Grease 10in / 25cm spring form with butter and flour. Preheat oven to 375°F / 190°C.
3. Mix flour and baking powder. Sift.
4. Whisk together butter, sugar, salt, vanilla extract and lemon zest. Whisk in eggs.
5. Stir in flour-and-baking-powder mixture and milk. Start with ca. 1 cup / 120ml of milk and then add more until batter is smooth but not runny.
6. Pour batter into spring form. Stick apple slices into the batter, upright and in concentric rings.
7. Bake for ca. 45-60 minutes.
8. Let cool, then remove from the spring form.