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Salads aren't my most favourite food, if I am to be honest. Seeing a recipe for salad on anyone's blog doesn't usually float my boat. So I don't expect this simple recipe to turn the Internet's head and send millions of unique visitors my way. But it really was a refreshing salad when I ate it yesterday, and I thought it worthwhile to make a post of it. The best part was that the apples were from my own little container tree, which has done rather well this year. i think I got about 20 apples from it, all told. It's only got two branches!
I had picked a couple of apples to see if they were edible or whether I would have to make an apple crisp or cake, because last month when I tried one, it was much too sour to make pleasant eating. (I made a cake with the apples then). They are meant to be eating apples, you see. But this time they were perfect, beautifully juicy and sweet with the right amount of tartness. Really lovely. Why I fancied a salad using the apples, I have no idea. I don't usually want a salad for dinner. But I had also picked some mint too, and I wanted to use that. So here it is. I can assure you that the salad is refreshing and I really enjoyed it. It is not any more exciting than that, unfortunately.
No wait, that's not quite true. There was SOME excitement while I was slicing the vegetables - I used a mandoline to make wafer-thin slices, and it was so viciously sharp and efficient at its job that I found I had sliced a bit off the side of my forefinger before I knew it. I cursed a bit and ran cold water over my finger, then went back to the mandoline. And it happened AGAIN, this time to my thumb. It was painful, but at least I can claim that I put myself into my salad. You don't have to do the same, though. I'm sure the salad would taste just as nice without the blood, sweat (metaphorically speaking) and tears.
Recipe for: Apple, cucumber and carrot salad
Ingredients:
2 medium eating apples
1 small cucumber
1 medium carrot
2 tbsp walnuts
handful of Chinese cabbage or lettuce, shredded very fine
For the dressing:
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp very finely chopped mint
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp apple balsamic vinegar
Salt to taste
1. Slice the cucumber, apples and carrot very thinly (I used a mandoline).
2. Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing. Adjust the taste to your requirement.
3. Mix the salad vegetables together, then add the dressing a little at a time - you may not require all of it, so go easy. Sprinkle the walnuts on top and eat immediately.
I have baked a good number of cakes in the years since I started this blog, and a good few of them are based around fruits, fresh or dried. Apples, oranges and bananas feature a lot among those, simply because I usually have those fruits around the house. Bananas figure a lot because they tend to go overripe before we can eat them (they have to be slightly underripe for Pete, and perfectly ripe for me – which doesn’t leave a big window of opportunity for the poor bananas!) Some overripe bananas can be sliced into cereal but beyond that, they get turned into cakes. Oranges I use a lot of because I love their flavour in cakes. As for apples, again, those with blemishes caused by mishandling or old age find their way into baked goods.
The apples I used in this cake fell into the latter category – they were beginning to shrivel with age, and needed to be used. Conveniently enough, I came across an eggless apple cake recipe that incorporated flaxseed and was so completely decadent (all that butter...!) that I felt I just HAD to make it. Boy, it sure didn’t tell a lie, that recipe... the texture of the cake was excellent, and the taste – oh my!
The blogger from whom I got this recipe said in her blog that the cake was just as nice cold, but I have to say that it was okay cold, but when served hot with vanilla ice-cream, the cake was absolutely spectacular! I don’t use the word “spectacular” often, but this cake totally deserves the accolade. Especially as we ate it over 4-5 days, and it lost nothing in the way of taste when it was reheated in the microwave oven.
Let me say that this is not a cake to be made everyday, or every week, or once a month, or even once in two months... but when you DO make it, be sure to enjoy it down to the last crumb and don’t skimp on the quality of the ice-cream either.
PS. The cake would probably look better with sliced apples arranged prettily, but for some reason I had decided to chop up the apples, so that was that.
Recipe for: Browned butter apple cake
Ingredients:
For the brown butter:
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 medium apples, peeled and chopped into 1-cm cubes
1. Heat the butter in a medium pan over medium heat until melted and bubbly,
then add the brown sugar
and stir till the sugar caramelises and turns golden brown. Be careful not to burn it.
Stir in the cinnamon and pour the mixure into an 8" pan that's been sprayed with Pam. Spread the apples evenly over the caramelised sugar.
For the cake:
1-1/4 cups AP flour
1/4 tsp nutmeg powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter or margarine
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp flaxseed powder
2 tbsp cornstarch/cornflour
1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup yogurt
Method:
1. Sift together the salt, flour, nutmeg and baking soda into a medium bowl.
2. Cream the butter and sugar with the vanilla extract till fluffy and light.
3. Beat in the cornstarch/cornflour and the milk, mixing well.
4. Add the flour mixture and yogurt a third at a time and beat till smooth.
5. Add the flaxseed powder and beat again. If the batter is very thick, beat in a bit more milk, tbsp by tbsp, until the batter is thick but of dropping consistency.
6. Spoon the batter evenly over the apples in the pan.
7. Bake the cake for 40-50 minutes at 180C or till a cake tester comes out dry.
8. While the cake is still hot, run a thin knife around the edges and place a plate over the cake, then carefully turn it upside down.
Serve the cake warm with best quality vanilla ice cream. The cake stays good for 3-4 days in a cool environment.
Hello to my readers, bloggers and non-bloggers both, on the first day of the new year, and the new decade! Here's hoping that the year brings everybody only the best of everything, and lots of love and laughter too.
I thought I'd start the first post of 2010 with a recipe for something sweet - a simple snack cake, chunky with tart apples and crunchy with toasted pecans. You can't go wrong with it (fingers crossed as I say this, though, because I'm a prime example of someone who can make a disaster of success!) and it's good just by itself, or for a more decadent dessert, serve warmed, with a dollop of thick organic Jersey cream, sprinkled with glittering demerara sugar, if you like.
Recipe for: Apple pecan snack cake
Ingredients:
3 tart apples, cored and chopped
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup pecans, toasted lightly and chopped + 10 or so whole toasted pecans for decorating cake (optional)
1/4 cup oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg, beaten
2 cups AP flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp cardamom powder (optional)
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Spray a 7" round cake pan (I used a bundt pan) with Pam or other spray.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the apples, sugar, raisins and chopped pecans.
Mix well and let stand for 30 minutes.
4. In a small bowl, add the oil. vanilla and egg.
Whisk till well combined.
5. Pour this mixture into the apple mixture and stir in.
6. Sift together the flour, baking soda and powder, cinnamon and cardamom powder (if using).
7. Stir the flour mixture into the apple mixture about a third at a time. Stir just enough to moisten the wet ingredients - dont over mix.
8. Pour the batter into the pan.
Arrange the remaining whole pecans decoratively on the top. Push them in only very slightly.
Bake for 35-40 minutes or till a tester comes out clean and the cake has pulled away from the sides of the pan.
Let the cake remain in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
Serve warm by itself, or with some cream if desired.
They say you can’t compare apples and oranges. I guess I can see why. Apples are hard and have thin skins you can usually eat; oranges and soft and you can’t eat the skin (at least not raw). Apples can be red or green or pink, whereas oranges are usually... well, orange. Apples are famously cooked in pies, and as far as I’m aware, I’ve never come across orange pie. (I might be merely ignorant, of course.)
The good thing here is that they – whoever they are – have never said that apples and oranges can’t be used in a recipe together... and I got proof of this from Google, which came up (only eventually) with a recipe for a cake that seemed easy AND doable AND tasty AND good-looking… AND, as it turned out, a blogger’s mum’s recipe. Evidently other people before me have discovered that apples and oranges go rather nicely – in fact quite deliciously - together in some things, like cake.
Boy, was it good. I reduced the quantity of the ingredients and replaced half the sugar with Splenda, and then halved the quantity of the remaining sugar so that I only used 1/4 cup in all.
Usually baking with just Splenda makes the cake a bit heavier in texture than otherwise – at least that’s been my experience so far. But this cake, although it seemed a tad sticky/moist at first, sort of fluffed itself out when it cooled, so that the cake part was nice and light and spongy. The apple chunks in it kept the cake moist for three days, and it smelt and tasted just as good as fresh, when it was warmed up in the microwave before serving.
It really was a delicious cake and I managed to use up three apples and four small oranges – which had been my intention in the first place.
Recipe for: Chunky apple and orange cake
Ingredients:
3 medium apples
1 tsp cinnamon
2-1/2 tbsp unrefined demerara sugar
2 tsp orange zest
1-3/4 cups flour, sifted
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup Splenda
1/2 cup orange juice (from four small oranges)
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs
3 tbsp chopped mixed nuts (I used walnuts and almonds)
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Grease a round loose-bottomed (or springform) 7" pan. Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon, sugar and orange zest. Set aside for 10 minutes.
2. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla.
4. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones,
then add eggs, one at a time.
Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.
5. Pour half of batter into prepared pan.
6. Spread half of apples over it.
7. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Sprinkle the nuts around the apple chunks.
8. Bake for about an hour (check after 45 minutes), or until a tester comes out clean and the cake has pulled away slightly from the pan.
9. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.
Serve warm.
After a long time, I'm really excited about an eggless cake. This was originally called "apple pound cake", and arrived in my inbox a few months back. It called for horrendous amounts of eggs and sugar and butter, and although I saved the recipe because I wanted to play around with the ingredients and quantities, I didn't feel like making the effort to turn idle thoughts into action.
However, there were a few Granny Smith apples that had been in the refrigerator for weeks. They needed using up, but they didn't quite look appetising enough to eat (plus there were fresh eating apples which I'd bought, having forgotten about the Grannies!) So I hauled out my file book of "cakes to try" and chanced upon the apple pound cake recipe again... and my mother's presence here encouraged me to omit the eggs, so that she could eat the cake too. I used oil instead of butter, and substituted the eggs with mashed banana, and because I had run out of regular flour, I used self-raising flour. Then of course I wasnt sure how much baking powder/soda I should add to the flour to make up for the lack of eggs... all in all, let's say that I wasnt very certain of the cake's outcome.
Surprisingly, and very pleasingly, it was super moist and wonderfully flavourful - the moistness from the grated apple and the flavour because I'd used cinnamon and cardamom rather than vanilla extract. The layer of apples at the bottom (which became the top when the cake was inverted - oh, did I forget to mention that I made it an upside-down apple cake?) had caramelised just the tiniest bit from the sprinking of demerara sugar I'd added to the cake pan at the first. About 98% of the apples unmoulded cleanly from the pan, but the bits that were left in the pan tasted unbelievably gorgeous - which I scarfed down as cook's perk, naturally... All in all, the cake was great on its own with a cup of tea, and just as gorgeous warmed slightly and served with vanilla icecream. All in all, one of the nicest eggless cakes I've made despite my meddling with the instructions and ingredients!
Recipe for: Moist apple cake
Ingredients:
3 Granny Smith apples
1-1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp cardamom powder
3/4 cup vegetable/sunflower oil
3/4 cup white sugar
3 tbsp demerara sugar
1 small ripe banana (to make 1/4 cup mashed)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
2-3 tbsp milk
Method:
1. Grease an 8” tube pan. Sprinkle demerara sugar evenly over the bottom.
Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Peel and core apples.
Slice one apple in half vertically, turn it a quarter circle and slice again into ¼ cm thick slices.
3. Grate the remaining apples and set aside, covered.
4. Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and cardamom powder and salt in a medium bowl.
5. In a large bowl, add the mashed banana, white sugar and vegetable oil.
Beat till well blended.
6. Add the flour in three or four stages, mixing well after each addition.
If the batter gets very thick, add a couple of tbsp milk to make it easier to mix. Don’t add too much milk, though - the grated apples will add enough moisture to the batter later.
7. Fold in the shredded apples
and chopped walnuts into the batter.
8. Arrange the sliced apples on the demerara sugar at the bottom of the pan, overlapping the slices slightly.
9. Spoon the batter evenly over the sliced apples and bake at 180C for 30 minutes.
Check to see if the cake is done; if not, give it another five minutes (and a further 5 if required) and check again. The cake should have pulled away slightly at the edges.
10. Cool the cake in the pan for 15 minutes, then carefully turn out onto a serving plate.
Let cool completely before slicing carefully.
Serve with vanilla icecream or thick cream, if desired.
