APPLE & CARDAMOM CAKE

I
hate to admit but I am not a big fan of any form of baked apples. I absolutely detest apple pies. According to me, apples are best eaten raw. I love their crunch . Here,in Minnesota,we have a lot of Apple Orchards in every city so we are  lucky to get farm fresh,firm, juicy,ripe apples during Fall. I love 'Honey Crisp' the most and every time we go to the Farmer's Market, I come back with a 5lb bag of 'Honey Crisp' apples.

This was my 2nd bag of apples and every time I pass by the stack, I grab one and munch. I just cannot get enough of it.I fell in love with these after we went apple picking at a farm nearby.We were also able to see how they make fresh apple cider. I will talk more about it in a post, later.

Long back, when I was in school, I got a recipe for an Apple Cake with a Struesel Topping from my Aunt's cookbook.As always, I wrote it down neatly in my diary. It's one of the first recipes in my diary.It called for frozen apple slices.So, I peeled, cored and sliced the apples fine by hand and froze it the night before. The next day after school, I measured all the other ingredients and got ready to bake. Unfortunately, our hand mixer stopped working and I didn't know about it. I asked Amma if I could make it with hand, she said it would be quite a task because we are so used to our good old Black & Decker hand mixer.

I didn't give up, instead I took a spoon and started beating the sugar and shortening together. By the look of me stirring and panting at the same time, Amma warned me that it is not going to come out fine.I still didn't give up.So, finally I mixed everything and arranged the apples in a very pretty manner on top of the cake and popped it into the oven to bake.The result:

Even Hard Rock Cafe would have had a tough competition (for the name)with my cake, if only they knew each other! It was hard but it tasted really good. So that was the end of my Apple Cake story.
This cake is first baked for 10 minutes and then a very creamy buttery absolutely delicious topping is poured over it and is baked once again for another 40 mins or till done.

APPLE & CARDAMOM CAKE
Recipe source: Helene


Ingredients:
For the cake:
All purpose flour- 1 1/4 c
Sugar- 1/2 c
Cardamom- 1 tsp, ground
Pinch of salt
Baking powder- 1 tsp
Whole milk- 3/4 c ( I used 2%)
Oil- 1/3 c
Egg-1
Apples- 2, peeled, cored and thinly sliced ( I used Honey Crisp apples , you can use any variety. I used my mandolin slicer for slicing my apples)

For the topping:
Unsalted/Salted butter- 5 1/2 tbsp, at room temperature
Sugar- 1/2 c
Egg-1
Vanilla extract- 1tsp

Method:
Pre heat the oven to 350F and prepare your cake tin.

For the cake:

• In a large mixing bowl, whisk all the dry ingredients together.
• In a glass ,whisk the wet ingredients together till blended.
• Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients slowly, whisking to make sure that everything is blended.
• Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin and arrange the sliced apples over it.

For the topping:

• Whisk the butter and sugar together till fluffy. 
• Add in the egg and vanilla and whisk once again.
• Reserve.

How to bake:

• Bake the cake with the apples on top at 350 F/180 C for 10 mins.
• Take the cake out of the oven and pour the topping over it. Spread using a spoon/spatula if necessary.
• Put it back into the oven and bake at 350 F/180 C for 40 mins or till a toothpick/skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Verdict:

If you are not a fan of baked apples like me, try this, it will change the way you look at baked apples! This cake is such a delicious thing that you just cannot stop with one slice.The topping kind of caramelizes after baking and is SO good! The addition of cardamom into the batter gives the cake a good lift .

I shared it with our neighbours and they called back saying they fought over each piece :-) See, I didn't know my cake would be a reason for their so called 'cake' fight :-) 

Jobin and myself loved this cake and he even took it as dessert to office one day.Yeah, it lasted for only a day, sadly :-/