Caramel Cake with Apple Filling

Apples often seem pretty plain jane to me. It was a fruit we always had in the house growing up,* and so I never thought it very special. This could be because I kind of hate red delicious apples, and pretty much any other apple that is sold at the grocery store in a plastic bag with ten other of its fellows. Not very special at all.

However, I declare Fall 2010 the Apple Revolution! Let us rejoice with the bounty of autumnal boughs hanging heavy with the crisp, sweet-tart fruit that is the apple!

And caramel. Everything I make has caramel in it these days.

Apple Revolution started a couple weekends ago when Eric and I went to Greensboro, NC for a wedding (shout out to Haley and Dave! Hooray!). We found there, surprisingly near our hotel and the highway, the absolute biggest farmer's market I have ever seen. It had three massive awnings that housed vendors selling everything from pumpkins to bread to flowers to apples. So many apples. I bought a very large bag filled with one of every kind I could find. We're talking Winesap and Arkansas Black and King Luscious and Duchess and Honeycrisp (aren't apple names just wonderful!)

Therefore...you will be seeing a lot of apple related desserts around here in the coming weeks.

The inspiration for this cake came from Honey and Jam, but I couldn't make the frosting from that recipe set. It stayed a caramel goo mess. Fortunately, I found a delicious recipe on Epicurious from Bon Appetit. If you beat the frosting a little, you get this dark, thick frosting that reminds me of caramels. If you beat it a lot, the frosting becomes lighter in color and very fluffy. Both are tasty, but I like the way the darker one looks better.

This combination is awesome, by the way. Truly awesome. The cake is a rare vanilla cake that stays moist for many days in a world full of dry cakes. The individual components take some time (mostly cooling time, so don't try to make this on a tight schedule), but you can spread out the making of the cake and it's not bad.

Vanilla Cake from Cakelove (it's best if you can weigh the ingredients, and so much easier)

I make this times 1.5 to come up with a three layer cake.

Preheat the oven to 350 and prepare two 9-in cake pans with parchment rounds in the bottom and butter or spray.

Dry Ingredients:

AP Flour, 7 oz or 1 1/4 cup plus 2 tbs

potato starch, 2 oz (you can sub cornstarch if necessary)

baking powder, 1 1/2 tsp

salt, 1 tsp

Wet Ingredients:

half and half, 1 cup

brandy, 2 tbs (can sub more half and half for this)

vanilla extract, 1 tbs

Creaming:

unsalted butter, room temp, 6 oz or 1 1/2 sticks

extra-fine granulated sugar, 14 oz or 1 3/4 cups (you can food process regular sugar to make extra fine.)

eggs, 4 large

Start by mixing the butter and sugar with in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment. Mix on med-low for at least 5 minutes, the more time the better. It will be very fluffy.

Meanwhile, whisk the dry ingredients in a bowl and sift together. In a separate container, combine all the wet ingredients.

After the butter and sugar are sufficiently creamed, add the eggs one at a time, blending well between each.

Finally, add the wet and dry ingredients in 5 alternating additions, waiting only until the ingredients are just incorporated before adding the next addition. Scrape the bowl and mix on medium speed for 15-20 seconds.

Divide the batter between the pans and bake for 25-28 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

Apple Filling adapted from Honey and Jam

I doubled this for a triple layer cake.

2 large granny smith (or other baking-type) apples

1/2 t ground cinnamon

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp lemon juice

Peel the apples and grate with a box grater. Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan and cook until the apples are tender and there is little liquid left. Cool completely.

Caramel Frosting from Epicurious

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup cream

2 egg yolks

1 stick unsalted butter, room temp

1/8 t salt

1 cup powdered sugar

Stir the sugar and water together and cook over med-high heat, swirling the pot occasionally (not stirring). Cook until the caramel is deep amber; watch it carefully, it will continue to darken a little after you turn off the heat. Remove from the burner and whisk in the cream (watch out for steam and bubbles). Stir until the caramel is smooth.

Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl, and gradually whisk in the hot caramel. Cool the caramel mixture.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and powdered sugar together until smooth. Beat in the caramel mixture. Let stand at room temperature until thick enough to spread, about an hour.

Spread the apple filling between the cake layers and frost the outside of the cake with caramel frosting. If you have time to freeze your cake layers, it makes frosting easier.

Go, enjoy this quintessential fall cake.

* Oddly enough, we also always had bananas around too when I was growing up, but that apparently had the opposite effect on me than the ever-present-bagged apple, because now I am slightly obsessed with the banana. Really, its the perfect fruit.

Apple Butter

Even though it is still 96 degrees here, it is officially fall and I am going to behave as such.

My mother and father planted an orchard when we first moved to the farm in Virginia when I was in middle school. They planted it up on the great tall hill behind our house. It was a beautiful location, but the deer ravished the young trees every year, stripping them of leaves and tender branches. Finally, it was necessary to up root the entire orchard and plant it closer to the house (and our dogs) to prevent the deer from eating it all up! This set the trees back a few years on their path to maturity.

So it is now, about 11 years later, that the trees are bearing fruit. Two weekends ago, I picked buckets full of apples with my mother- finally enjoying the (literal) fruits of her labor. I made it home with two large bags full of Rome, Fuji and Golden Delicious apples. It is strange and quite nice to use fruit that is smaller and more blemished than you ever see in Kroger.

Apple Butter runs through my family's veins; every fall the relatives on my mother's side all join together and take turns stirring a massive pot over a bonfire in the Missouri countryside and come away with gallons and gallons of the smoothest, spiciest apple butter.

I wasn't quit up to an epic outdoor fire apple butter session with my two grocery bags of apples, but my friends Sara and Andrew (who are getting married in less than three weeks!!) told me about a fantastic Apple Butter recipe that they found on Simply Recipes, so I gave it a shot. Andrew added a secret ingredient that maybe I'll be able to share here eventually...

Yesterday I saw a pumpkin stand in town, and this morning I had apple butter on toast. Maybe fall will come to Augusta after all.

Apple Butter, adapted from Simply Recipes

4 pounds of apples, chunked, damaged parts removed (but not cored or peeled, because those parts add pectin and flavor.)

1 cup apple cider vinegar

water

2.5-4 cups sugar (1/2 cup for every cup of puree the apples produce)

salt

2 t cinnamon

1/2 t cloves

1/2 t allspice

zest and juice from 1 lemon

large pot for boiling apples and then jars

large deep pan for boiling down apple puree

canning jars and lids

blender (optional)

sieve

tongs

canning funnel (optional)

clean towels

cup measure

Put the apples in the large pot, add the apple cider vinegar and enough water to cover them. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Boil until the apples are soft, about 20 minutes.

Mashed the apples and press through the sieve, or puree in a blender or food processor and then sieve. Measure the cups of puree into the large deep pan and add 1/2 cup sugar for every cup of puree. Add a dash of salt, the spices and the lemon juice. Adjust spices to taste.

(Other spice idea: I have recently read about cardamom apple butter, which I am definitely going to try next time I make it, because cardamom is pretty much the best spice ever.)

Cook uncovered on low heat for 1-3 hours until desired consistency is reached. Stir very often. I probably cooked mine down more than I had to (after only an hour); mine is very thick and I only got 2 and a half half-pint jars. You might even get double that if you stop sooner. The more you stir, the faster the apple butter will thicken because it will help the moisture evaporate.

Make sure to prepare your canning set up well before the apple butter is done cooking down.

I would read though proper canning techniques as improperly canned foods can make you sick or dead.

this is a good link:

http://www.freshpreserving.com/pages/step_by_step_high_acid_foods/34.php

Because Apple Butter and jams have such a high sugar I use a method that involves sterilizing my jars in boiling water that completely covers them for at least ten minutes and quickly pouring hot jam into hot jars and quickly lidding them with hot lids (making sure to wipe the top of the jar with a clean towel before lidding it.) As the jars cool, they will seal themselves.

I would research canning thoroughly before deciding what method to use, but I've never had any problems canning jam in this way.

Somehow, apple butter tastes both deep and spicy, but also super fresh. Kind of like apple cider. I think this is best way to use apples, maybe even better than pies and tarts (but you be the judge, I'm posting an apple pie recipe soon.)

Apple Tart

What a wonderful way to pound some puff pastry.

Ingredients:

3 or 4 apples; I used granny smith

brown sugar, a cup or so

some cinnamon, maybe a teaspoon? or more?

and a squirt of lemon juice.

1 sheet of puff pastry

Defrost the puff pastry and unfold. Preheat to 350. Peel your apples, half them and scoop out the core. Cut each half into skinny slices and put into a bowl. Cover the slices with the sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice, and let sit for a few minutes.

Arrange the apples in a few rows, very close together. Cram as many apples as you can on that sheet of pastry, leaving an inch or an inch and a half around the edge, which you can either leave flat or fold up and squeeze in pleats to keep it there.

Bake on a baking sheet for 20-30 min, until golden brown. I snagged a few apples on the drive to the restaurant and they are TASTY.

Sausage Hand Pies

No utensils necessary, you can take these handy hand pies anywhere! On a picnic, for example. Which is just what Eric and I did this evening.

This recipe is from the halloween Martha issue. I halved the recipe.

Pate Brisee

5 cups all purpose flour

2 t salt

2 t sugar

1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons

3/4-1 cup ice water

Combine flour, salt and sugar in food processor, add butter and pulse until only pea sized chunks remain. (or rub the butter in with the flour with your hands if you haven't gotten your food processor yet.) With machine running, add water slowly in through the feed tube only til the dough starts to come together. Pull dough into a ball and divide into three disks. Wrap these in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour. (I only did for about 30 min, and nothing bad happened.)

1 lb sweet italian sausage, casings removed.

1 large onion, diced (1.5 c)

1 t minced fresh thyme

1/4 t fresh ground pepper

1 T plus 1 t flour, plus more for dusting

3/4 cup chicken stock (I completely forgot about this when I made the recipe.)

1 medium Granny Smith Apple, cut into 1/2 in cubes.

Pate Brisee

1 large egg, slightly beaten.

Cook sausage in a skillet, breaking it up as you go, until the pink is gone. Transfer the sausage to a plate, leaving the grease in the skillet.

Cook the onion, pepper and thyme until the onion is translucent.

Add flour to the pan, stirring about 30 seconds. Add the chicken stock, stirring until thick, about 1 minute. Stir in apples and sausage, let cool.

Preheat oven to 375.

Roll out each disk of dough on a floured surface until it's about 1/8 in thick. Place them on parchment paper and refrigerate for 15 min.

Using a 3-3/4 in round cookie cutter, cut rounds from the sheets of dough. Place 2 T filling in the center of half of the rounds. Brush edges with lightly beaten egg. (you can either cut interesting shapes from the remaining rounds and replace the shape, slightly off, or cut little slits like I did.) Top the filled circles with the slitted circles, pressing down with a fork to seal. Place on parchment lined baking sheet and refrigerate for 15 MORE minutes. (I did not do this step). (Alternatively, once you get to this point, you can freeze the pies and bake without defrosting at a later date. They will cook in the same amount of time, according to Martha.)

Brush with egg and bake, rotating the sheets halfway through, until golden brown, about 40 minutes. Serve pies warm or at room temp.