My offering for the 2023 Friendsgiving Extravaganza! I love my pals, This cake got devoured! I served it with Bourbon Butterscotch Ice Cream which was a real crowd pleaser. Daniel Roberts (aka deep sea dan) hosted us and his house (his mom's house) is the coolest. It was a wonderful evening of awesome friends, awesome food, and a whole lot to be grateful for. As always! Apple Upside-Down CakeRecipe slightly adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum Caramelized Apple Top:
Meanwhile, prepare you cake pan! Spray a 9" pan with cooking spray and line the bottom with a parchment round. In a small heavy saucepan, melt the butter. Use about 1 tbsp to coat the parchment lined bottom and sides of the cake pan. To the remaining melted butter in the pan, add the reserved liquid and remaining brown sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly with a spatula. Once boiling, stop stirring and leave to bubble and cook for about 3 minutes until thick and deep amber in colour. Pour this mixture (Rose says "do not scrape") into the prepared cake pan, tilting the pan to coat the entire bottom. The mixture will probably harden, don't worry. It will melt back during baking and become all lovely and soft and hug the apples in a nice caramel coat. Place the apple slices in a decorative pattern, slightly overlapping, over the bottom of the pan. I like to start in the middle and work outwards. Whatever you place first will be what you see on top of the cake. Keep this in mind when arranging the apples. Set the pan aside. Cake Batter:
Cream the butter with the granulated sugar. Beat in the yolks and the vanilla. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, powder, soda, salt). Add half of the dry ingredients to the mixer and blend until barely combined, then add the sour cream, blend until barely combined, then add the remaining dry ingredients and gently mix/fold until everything is mixed but do not over-work the batter. Spoon the batter over the apples and gently spread with an offset spatula, ensuring the apples stay in place. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the top springs back when gently pressed, and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Run an offset spatula around the outsides of the cake pan and invert the pan onto a cake stand or other serving platter. Allow the pan to sit on top for a minute or two before lifting off. If any apple slices remain in the pan, just gently remove them and place them back on the cake where they are missing. Serve warm or at room temperature, with toasted walnuts (Spread 2/3 cup (66g) walnuts onto a tray and bake for about 7-9 minutes, stirring once to ensure even toasting) and Bourbon Whipped cream:
Happy Thanksgiving :) ~Lari 2023
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I made these little tea-time-treats to celebrate the last day of Passover this year... now full confession I am not even a little bit Jewish, I do not normally celebrate passover. But I simply love celebrating and any excuse to bake and try a new recipe. And so, voila, thanks to owning a Nigella Lawson cookbook that has an entire chapter dedicated to Passover, I present these tiny flourless pretties. They are soft and sweet and spongey and happen to be gluten free... not that I even intended to make them for that reason either, more for the fact that I have some ground almonds kicking around that need to be loved. I JUST LIKE BAKING OKAY. So... here is a Passover-friendly-gluten-free dessert coming from a gal who is decidedly not Jewish and unassailably loves flour. Whoopsies! They are here because they are dainty and tasty and certainly pretty little things. Flourless Apple-Almond Tea CakesRecipe slightly adapted from Nigella Lawson
March 14th is one of my favourite days to celebrate! If you haven't heard of Pi Day before... here you go: March 14 = the 14th day of the 3rd month = 3.14 = Pi = Pie My kind of math. I have been wanting to try my hand at making an apple crumble pie for a while now... we sell one such pie at the cafe where I work and it is a thing of beauty. Or at least, it looks like a thing of beauty. I confess I've never actually had a whole slice but I have tried broken bits and pieces that were not fit enough to sell. I'm no pie connoisseur, but it looks picture perfect and that crumble topping is all I ever want to eat ever. I always hope that a big chunk will fall off as we are cutting it to serve, so that I can snatch it up and have a taste for myself :) You might say, "Why don't you just buy a slice?" But, if you know me, my style response is more along the lines of, "Let's go home and figure out how to make this myself" Here is my attempt to re-create that pie, mashing together a few recipes from one of my most trusted baking mentors... that's right I'm talking about Martha. She usually doesn't let me down, and in this case, she pulled through once again. I believe the pie was a success!! For two reasons:
I added a few of my own twists to make the pie of my apple-crumble-dreams by throwing in some chopped walnuts and toasted oats into the crumble mixture. I also made sure there was a good pinch of salt in there too, as the slight salt in the crumb is what keeps me hoping a big chunk will decide to stray from the pie and make for easy snacking ;) The apple filling uses both fuji and granny smith apples for a nice balance of sweet/tart, and the filling itself is not overly wet but still juicy. I highly encourage you to serve this with a big scoop of ice cream... a good quality vanilla OR if you are feeling sassy, salted caramel is my weapon of choice. (High five that a Village Ice Cream store is just a few blocks up the street from where I live) Happy Pi Day! Apple Crumble Pierecipe adapted from Martha Stewart Pâte Brisée:
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