I may have squealed a little when Carly asked me to write a guest blog post for Modern Hippie Housewife. I knew exactly what recipe I wanted to share: this delightfully fancy looking but oh so simple apple cake. This is a recipe that my Mom has been making since she was in her twenties thanks to her much loved (and completely falling apart) German Home Baking recipe book from the 60’s.
Both my Mom and I have been baking exclusively with spelt for around 10 years now. It started with my naturopath suggesting I remove wheat from my diet, but all we could find at the grocery stores were these hard, dense lumps of bread that reminded me of doorstops. So we tinkered around and ended up with a wheat free, no-knead bread that we both still make to this day.
For me, eating spelt flour has been far easier on my digestive system and doesn’t make my ears, nose and throat scratchy like wheat does (allergic reaction much?) so I knew I was on to something. These days I make everything from bread, to cakes, pastry, muffins, pancakes and waffles, pizza dough and pasta with spelt flour. So back to this cake…I’ve had it endless amounts of times for dessert (or breakfast!) and every single time my taste buds do a happy dance as if I’ve never had it before. True to many European recipes there is little sugar in this cake, but it really allows the flavours of the apple and lemon to shine through.
Updated April 8, 2022: While the original recipe still lives on Carly’s Modern Hippie Inc. website, I have included an updated recipe below in the way I now make it. Essentially the same, but with different measurements for the ingredients and slightly different instructions/technique. Of course I have also updated the pictures here. 🙂
German Apple Sponge Cake
Ingredients
- 200 g organic all purpose, unbleached spelt flour also called white spelt flour or regular all-purpose flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp sea salt
- 3-4 granny smith apples
- juice of one large lemon
- 115 g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 115 g sugar
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- rind of one large lemon
- 5-6 tbsp homogenized milk at room temperature
- icing sugar for decoration
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 26 cm springform cake pan with butter and set aside. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together into a medium sized bowl. Set aside.
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Grate the lemon and set the rind aside. Add the lemon juice into a large bowl and remove any seeds that may have fallen into the bowl. Peel the apples one at a time, cut each apple into quarters, cut out the core from each quarter and toss them all in the lemon juice. Take each quarter in the palm of your hand with the outside of the apple facing up. Using a small paring knife, slice each quarter multiple times length wise about half way through. The slices should be about ½ cm apart. Cutting the apples like this creates the fanned look when baked. Cut each sliced quarter in half lengthwise and toss again in the lemon juice. Set aside.
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In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Gradually add the sugar and beat again until lighter in colour and completely incorporated. Add the eggs one at a time and beat after each to combine. Add the vanilla extract and lemon rind and beat again until combined.
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Add the flour mixture a little at a time on the lowest speed. When it is about half mixed together add the milk and mix on low until just incorporated. The dough should have a firm dropping consistency (should slowly but gradually fall off a spoon). If it does not add more milk 1 tbsp at a time until the correct consistency is achieved.
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Spread the mixture evenly into the greased spring form pan. Lay the apples side by side in two ring formations with the outside of the apples facing up. Use a small paring knife to trim the apples for the inner ring if required.
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Bake for 40 minutes turning the pan after 20 minutes to ensure even baking or until cake is golden brown and apples are soft. Remove from the oven and let the cake cool completely before removing from the spring form pan. Dust with icing sugar just before serving.
The recipe seems to be missing from the Modern Hippie Housewife website. Are you going to update this page and add the recipe to your blog? It looks delicious.
I’ve updated the link in the post. She recently overhauled her entire site so I think the link ended up broken.