This is my ideal apple cake and officially the only recipe I'll need from now on for a moist, fruit filled snack cake that screams AUTUMN! It's chock full of apples with just enough batter to hold it together and it comes together in one bowl in minutes. You'll find no cinnamon in this, after all its a French cake and the French aren't real fans of cinnamon, like we are, (sometimes I think we are too much of a fan, just sayin') and with but a whisper of sugary sweetness it feels just as much at home for breakfast with a dollop of full flavoured vanilla yogurt (or as I did yogurt with a spoonful of caramel sauce stirred in) as it is with tea or a late night snack. But of course I can never leave well enough alone and that jar of salted butter caramel sauce in my fridge was just the thing to slather over this. After all whenever there's caramel sauce around everything in sight is a potential platform : a slice of apple, cake, ice cream, yogurt...finger... spoon... tongue... I'm blaming it on my Mom who made a mean butterscotch sauce and kept it in a squeeze bottle in the fridge. I'd catch her sneaking a squeeze straight into her mouth on more than one occasion. Caramel addiction is therefore genetic and not my fault.
This is the perfect time of year to make this cake because while you'll be able to make this at any time of year, this month is perhaps when I'm most excited about apples. They are fresh from the tree and they actually smell like an apple, truly, perfuming the entire outdoor market. They haven't been sitting in a storage house, waxed, or sadly mounded on supermarket shelves being completely taken for granted, grabbed out of habit and then eaten with duty and no enjoyment. No these market fresh apples are at their peak and since I haven't really eaten an apple since May, after all who in their right mind would eat apples when there's strawberries and peaches around, I'm consuming plenty of these a day to keep quite a few Dr's a way I hope.
Unlike alot of recipes that use apples, such as pies, you don't need a particular apple for this cake. in fact the larger the variety the better. I did include a mixture of types of apples, being sure to include at least 1 tart apple, just for balance. And I was glad I resisted the urge to put cinnamon it it. This isn't your all American apple pie, its a simple apple cake, therefore I think it needs to be kept as such and let those apples shine. Its also loaded with a healthy swig of rum, so lets not cover that up. While I have always thought of apples and brandy going well together I suppose I've never considered apples and rum and it turns out they are best friends, so much so that I'm starting to think less of cinnamon when I think of apple desserts and instead hope to come up with new ways to combine rum and apples. Booze + fruit = tasty tasty stuff.
This is officially my go to apple cake and I love that it came together in about 10 minutes plus 1 hour in the oven. I must stress to those of you non-bakers reading right now. This is one of the easiest desserts to bake, hands down. The hardest part is chopping the apples. Thank you, Dorie, once again. I'm not sure how she does it, but these classics of hers rarely disappoint.
FFwD Rules state we don't publish the recipe in our post, so I'm honouring that. But consider buying this beautiful book so you can cook along with us. I can't recommend it enough.
Read what Dorie herself has to say about this cake, a little back story too, on her blog.
Don't tell, but its actually online over at Epicurious...
If you are still in the mood for more easy apple recipes, bake up this easy my impressive apple pancake this weekend.
