I never did bake much, but this cake caught my eye and I would like some help adjusting it. Any help would be appreciated, as I've never made any kind of basic low carb cake. I make pancakes occasionally, sometimes with ricotta, I usually have some kind of flour around, hazelnut, coconut, flax AND, it might even try this over a camp fire.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/this-ap...crop-1442860759
ENLARGE
POUR TECHNIQUE | Drenching the cake in cream before baking keeps both the cake and the apples on top perfectly moist. PHOTO: YUNHEE KIM FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, FOOD STYLING BY JAMIE KIMM, PROP STYLING BY STEPHANIE HANES
By ALEKSANDRA CRAPANZANO
September 22, 2015
6 COMMENTS
IF YOU’VE BEEN cooking for years, reading a just published cookbook is akin to flirtation. Perhaps you’ll stray from the tried and true and succumb to the allure of the untried and new. But some recipes, once they enter the rotation, become sacrosanct. This apple cake is one of them, the version I return to every fall. I haven’t cooked it all my life—only for the 10 years or so since I first read about it in “The Arrows Cookbook.” But the first time I made it, I realized I had finally found the apple cake recipe worthy of a lifelong commitment. Yes, I’ve tried others in the intervening years and, yes, many have been delicious, but never quite as good, and so I return to this one, tail between my legs, and repeat my vows with renewed conviction.
The secret to this recipe is in the final step. After making a relatively basic cake and topping it with the usual concentric circles of apple slices and sprinkling of cinnamon-sugar, you pour heavy cream over the whole thing moments before putting it in the oven. The cream bathes the apples then sinks to the bottom of the pan. The steam it emits during baking permeates the cake, giving it incomparable moistness and tenderness. It is simple and brilliant.
This technique appears to have a long history. In the days when cakes were cooked by the fire—set on a hot stone hearth or hung directly above the flames—pouring milk or cream over top would insure that the cake did not burn on the bottom. The liquid would simmer at the bottom of the pan, creating a protective layer between cast iron and cake. The traditional approach, however, called for pouring the liquid onto the cake once it was mostly cooked and at risk of burning. Adding the cream as called for in the accompanying recipe, before the cake is baked, provides that critical moisture for the apples as they cook. The slices retain their juice and flavor and taste almost more poached than baked—a far cry from the shriveled fruit found atop most apple cakes. The result is a dessert that won’t surprise you but will most decidedly win you over immediately and, I like to think, for always.
Super Moist Apple Cake with Cinnamon Sugar
Active Time: 20 minutes Total Time: 1 hour Serves: 8
2 cups sugar
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 large eggs
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon cake flour
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of kosher or sea salt
¾ cup whole milk
¾ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 medium baking apples, peeled, cored, halved, and thinly sliced
¾ cup heavy cream
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-inch round, 2-inch-deep cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat 1½ cups sugar and butter until light in color, 3-5 minutes. Scrape down bowl as necessary and continue beating until mixture is very light in texture and color, several minutes more. Beat in eggs one at a time, scraping bowl between additions.
3. Sift together both flours, baking powder and salt. Alternate between mixing milk and dry ingredients into butter mixture, stopping to scrape bowl as necessary. Add vanilla and mix batter just until smooth. Do not overbeat.
4. Pour batter into prepared pan and spread with a rubber spatula to evenly cover pan. Arrange apple slices in overlapping concentric circles on top of the batter, taking care to completely cover it. Pour cream evenly over apples.
5. Stir together remaining ½ cup sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle mixture over top of cake. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 45 minutes. Remove pan from oven, transfer to a rack and let cool completely.
—Adapted from “The Arrows Cookbook” by Clark Frasier and Mark Gaier