The very first spoonful brought back a flood of memories from my childhood. My mom used to have a glass apple grater; we used it to make fresh apple sauce for the babies. Babies were plentiful in my family so the old apple grater was used at regular successions. Back in the days in Hungary when we never even heard of baby food.
an old apple grater
So if you like the taste of freshly grated apples this cake is for you! Imagine fresh apple sauce in an ethereal cake form and yet stable enough to slice! Serve it with vanilla flavoured sweet whipped cream and you have an irresistible dessert. As promised, this was very easy to make. I changed the layering a little. I lightened the top layer; this gave increased stability to the apple layers. I reduced the butter, because I figured a thinner top will not need quite as much butter. I also added Fruitfresh to keep the apple sauce a light golden color. Otherwise I kept to the original recipe. Thank you Sissi for sharing this delicate cake.
5 cups grated apples [will need about 1-1/2 kg of apples and more if you use windfalls]
1 Tbsp Fruitfresh
1 cup semolina
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1Tbsp baking powder
1 pinch of salt
1/4 cup butter
Serve cake with:
1 cup whipping cream
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
• Set the oven between 375F and 400F and preheat.
• Peel the apples, removing the core, stems and ends.
• Rinse and drain the apples and then grate them or put them through the food processor.
• Mix in the Fruitfresh. This will keep the apples from turning brown.
• In a large bowl combine the flour, the semolina, the salt, the baking powder and the sugar with a balloon whisk.
• Line a 9 inch spring form cake pan with parchment and spray with cooking spray.
• Reserve 1/2 cup from the flour mixture for use later.
• Divide the flour mixture into two equal layers.
• Put 1/2 of the flour mixture in the pan. This will be the base.
• Cover with half of the grated apples
• Cover the grated apples with the remaining flour mixture.
• Cover with the remaining apples.
• Sprinkle the top with the reserved 1/2 cup of flour mixture. This will be the top.
• Melt the butter and drizzle over the top. Try to cover the entire top with the melted butter.
• Place the pan in the preheated oven and bake until the entire top is golden.
• Remove pan from the oven and let it cool down.
• Unhook the spring mechanism and take off the ring.
• For neat slices cut and serve this cake right off the baking pan base.
• Cake is not stable enough to transfer in its entirety onto a platter. One alternative is to freeze it first, remove the parchment paper from the bottom and then place the frozen cake on the cake platter. Or slice it frozen with a chef’s knife and then arrange the cake slices as they were on the platter. Either way let it fully thaw before serving.
• Serve cake with a generous dollop of vanilla flavoured sweet whipped cream.
fresh apple sauce
