It’s a chilly morning, and the yard is covered with frost. No bread in the house, guess I’ll need to whip up a cake for breakfast.
I hike down the hill to the garage…our temporary storage facility. Opening the door, I’m greeted with the sweet perfume of apples. Bushels and bushels of apples.
The temperature in our garage is 38 degrees—perfect for storing apples. And do we have a lot! Over 50 bushels are ‘sweating”, waiting to be pressed into cider…juice, sparkling cider, and vinegar. Apples from the 21 trees we tend at Barbour Farm…apples from our trees in Bangor…apples from Howard. Every size, and color…in different stages of waiting.
Quickly I select 3 good sized Sweet 16’s and return back up the hill. By now, the heat from my oven has warmed the kitchen and I set to make this cake. We have a busy day ahead….putting some apples into sauce, developing a new jam recipe…plus delivering the first of our CSA shares.
As the cake rests and cools on the counter, heat up the cast iron skillet for frying up some local eggs from Four Season Farm, and call to the “boys” (Tait and Flip) still lounging under the bed covers. The sun is just starting its rosy glow over the cove…another day, a great breakfast!
SIMPLE APPLE CAKE
The recipe for this cake was adapted from Amy Traverso’s book, “The Apple Lovers Cookbook”. We enjoy it for breakfast or with whipped cream for dessert
3 large, firm-sweet apples (Sweet 16 are nice), cored and cut into cubes
½ cup maple syrup
½ cup whole wheat or whole meal flour
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 large egg
1/3 cup melted butter
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Generously butter a 8 inch round or square pan.
Core the apples and cut them into bite-sized cubes. In a medium bowl, stir the apples with the maple syrup and set aside for the sugars to mix.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, spices and baking soda. Stir in the apples and their juice. Then add the egg and the melted butter and stir to combine. Amy adds in her book, “ at this point, the mixture will not look promising – as if there is not enough batter to coat the apples. Don’t worry – the recipe really does work.”
Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake until nicely browned and a toothpick comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Let cool for 20 minutes. (We can never wait this long.)
Yield: 9 servings
Nutritional analysis per serving: 200 calories, 3 grams protein, 31 grams carbohydrates, 8 grams fat, (0 grams trans fat), 132 mg. Sodium, 2.3 grams fiber.