Apple Dutch Cake

You know in your closet… how you have your favorite pair of jeans or maybe it’s a black sweater. You wear it all the time, dress it up, dress it down, it’s super comfortable so you wear it even when no one is around. I have a cake recipe for you… the preverbal favorite pair of jeans for your recipe armoire. You can dress it up, dress it down, add any fruit you like, ice it, dust it, or leave it plain. It’s delicious no matter how you slice it or accessorize for that matter.

Today I choose to dress it down, putting the fruit on top making a sort of rustic Danish, and then lightly icing it to make it appetizing.

The cake is simple enough
1 ½ cup of flour
½ cup of sugar
½ teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 egg
½ cup of milk
1 teaspoon (or cap full) of pure vanilla extract
1 stick or ½ cup of butter melted … sorry, I mean buttah… shout out to my brother.

Preheat your oven to 400 F. Pam up your baking vesicle of choice.

Mix all the dry in the standing mixer. Mix all the wet in another bowl, I used the measuring cup I melted the buttah in. Turn on the mixer to start the party, with the dry ingredients. While the dry ingredients mingle, add the drinks. (Then add the wet into the dry.) It will take less than a minute for the two to combine, much like a regular party. When the two are happy together, pour into your buttered pan.

Voila… (Do you know that the French and the French Canadians actually say that a lot? It is surprisingly not a stereotype, they really do it.)

It needs about 25 minutes tanning… baking, and your done.

I dressed mine up with apple Dutch topping:

1 uber larger granny smith apple, peeled and sliced
½ cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of freshly ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons of golden raisins

Place the apple slices into the batter making a decorative pattern. Mix together the sugar, cinnamon and raisins in a bowl. Sprinkle over top… ready? Voila. Bake at 400 F for about 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

For this rendition, I choose to accessorize with classic icing glaze. But really you could do anything with this recipe, any fruit, any topping. Chocolate chips, pineapple upside down or right-side up cake, cranberry upside down cake… whatever your heart’s desire, or whatever you have in your fridge. My only caution is that you taste the topping on its own. It should taste good raw, you don’t want it to be too tart. My rule with baking is, if doesn’t taste good raw, it won’t taste good baked. That is not the same with ground beef, please don’t try raw ground beef.

Hope you come up with many wonderful expressions of your personal style with this cake.

As always, much love, many blessings, and happy baking.