A.P.P.L.E.S
Let's start with cake.
Hello from NL 31. This is Bake Sense, the somewhat ordered record of ramblings that concern the world of baking, from championing flavour and wholesome ingredients to questioning where those ingredients come from and how we can make the most of them. Along the way, you’ll find recipes and insights from life in and out of the professional bakery and plenty of fruitful chat.
Today’s newsletter is a quick one, but it kicks off a subject that I’ll no doubt revisit a few times in the coming months, for deep down in my bones and soul, I know apples are my preferred pome. My favourite fruit of them all.
British apple season is just beginning, and if we’re lucky, it’ll be a good one with diverse varieties that will inform a versatile range of bakes, salads and snacks.
Cookers, suitable for baking, compote-ing, tarte tatin-ing, stuffing and puréeing, are a class that extends well beyond the ubiquitous Bramley.
Eaters, to slice in half, core and consume out of hand, to pack in lunchboxes, or to be found rolling around in the bottom of your rucksack (and no worse for it) are readily available and resilient.
There is a perfect moment for each apple, and I look forward to finding each and every one in the months to come.
A classic vibrant green, white-fleshed, knobbly and gnarly cooking apple is always the first to greet me in mid—late August. Almost simultaneously, Discovery, an early dessert variety, docks in the bakery. Combined, they make the best apple cake, and this Ottolenghi recipe is my first stop when the season rolls around. I make a few tweaks to the original but never stray too far.
It’s a great recipe to use wholemeal flour or even a portion of freshly milled flour (if you’re keen on milling grain at home), and the Lemon zest is interchangeable with orange if that’s what you have to hand. The olive oil is a must, and don’t skip rehydrating the raisins.
I can take or leave the maple icing and prefer a minimally sweetened mascarpone and cream cheese combo. I like to cross the T’s with a drizzle of characterful honey and dot the I’s with flakes of vanilla sea salt.
If coded, this recipe’s DNA would be a closer match to apple than cake, and the original suggestion of three Bramley apples has become what seems to be an extraordinary 900g of diced apple in a mix of varieties. You don't have enough diced apples if you don’t struggle to fold the chunks through the batter.
What marks this cake out above and beyond all other apple cakes is the very deliberate exclusion of cinnamon and the very definite inclusion of citrus zest and vanilla. The result is a cake that is not too sweet, tastes fresh and light despite its weight, with a definite bite and recognisable chunks of apple texture.
I implore you to make it for yourself.
A no-fuss Mascarpone cloud to cover any apple cake.
Ingredients
(enough to generously cover 1 x deep 9 inch cake)
200g full-fat cream cheese
250g mascarpone
2 tbsp icing sugar
dark honey
flaky vanilla sea salt to finish*
*Vanilla Sea Salt - mix 1/8tsp vanilla powder with 2tbsp finest flaky sea salt. Store in a jar and use to season cookies, creams or sticky things, especially things made with honey or maple syrup.
Gently beat the cream cheese until smooth, add the mascarpone and sift in the icing sugar. Mix well to combine. Spoon over the cake and offset spatula the hell out of it to get it just so. Drizzle over the honey and finish with the vanilla salt.
If anyone out there has a favourite apple variety or an especially obscure one native to your part of the world, I’d love to hear about it. Drop me a comment below.
Bring on apple season!
Adore apple cakes, thank you for this