It's Fall Time for Fall Recipes...

I have been sadly sadly lacking in my posts to my humble blog. With non-existent followers, I guess I didn't have the motivation I needed to keep this updated. I did also lose my baking groove during the late summer months. 80+ degree weather does not make for a good baking day. But, I know that is no excuse! I will be faithful and loyal to my steadfast readers (Where?!) and will start blogging again!

Speaking of late summer months, we have now progressed into lovely, cool, windy (especially today in the Bay Area), and ideal baking weather called Fall. This is one of my favorite times of year just because we are blessed with a cornucopia of apples of all varieties, and a very good reason to start working on all things pumpkin!

But first, I'd like to share a recipe that I found on Food Gal's blog last month for Babette Friedman's Apple cake. It is a very simple recipe that I thought kept the flavors of the apples as the main focal point of the delicate cake.

Ingredients used

Apple slices bathing in cinnamon, grated ginger and just a little booze!

The Finished Cake! Time to dig in!

My family liked this recipe so much that I baked it two more times. Once with Jazz apples (delicious too!) and a second time with Gala apples. The cake came out great every time. But if you'll notice, the cake tastes a little different as you use different apples (obviously to some of us) but my family liked each cake as much as the last one!

Babette Friedman's Apple Cake

(makes one 9-inch cake, about 8-10 servings)

Ingredients:

8 ounces unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan

1 1/3 cups plus 1 tbsp granulated sugar, divided use

1/8 tsp salt

2 large eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

4 apples, peeled, cored, and each cut into 8 slices (I used Golden Ginger apples, which seemed look like a Golden Delicious but has the tartness and crispiness of a Honey Crisp apple)

1 tablespoon Calvados or apple brandy (I used Grand Marni er instead. I thought the citrus-y flavor might be interesting with the tart/sweetness of the Golden Ginger apples)

1 tsp freshly grated ginger

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan, and set aside.

Combine 8 ounces butter, 1 1/3 cups sugar, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix until blended and fluffy. Add eggs and whisk until smooth. In a small bowl, combine flour with baking powder. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the flour-baking powder mixture into the butter-sugar mixture until thoroughly combined. Fold in about 1/3 of the apples, and spread butter evenly in pan*.

*Note: I changed the recipe here where I added the Grand Marnier, ginger, and cinnamon to all the apple slices before adding 1/2 of the apples to the batter. This way, I had some of these flavors and extra apple slices mixed into the batter.

In a large bowl, toss remaining apples with Calvados, ginger and cinnamon. Arrange apple slices in closely fitting concentric circles on top of the dough; all slices may not be needed. Sprinkle remaining 1 tablespoon sugar over apples.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of cake dough comes out clean and apples are golden and tender, about 50 minutes (or longer)**. Serve warm or at room temperature.

**Note: I had to bake mine for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. The cake batter was too wet and just wasn't done enough to take out any sooner.

Adapted from the Food Gal, who adapted from Daniel Rose's adaptation of a December 2008 NY Times recipe