(Non-)Canadian apple cake

Photo updated in August 2008. I've also added gram measurements for dry ingredients in addition to volume measurements.

This is my most faithful apple cake recipe – a recipe that has been with me for a lot more than a decade. Despite having tried numerous other apple cake recipes – some fancier, some humbler, some trickier, some simpler – this is the recipe I come back to most often.

In 1978, a book was published in Estonian, called "Maailma toite" or "Dishes of the world". It was a collection of numerous recipes collected from various sources and a small number of pictures. Chapters were listed according to regions or countries, each beginning with a small introductory paragraph about what people eat in the given country. I loved the book – I liked the descriptions of foods from faraway places that I could never visit in person (or that’s how it seemed behind the Iron Curtain at the time), and reading about these foods gave me a sneak preview into the lives on the other side of than notorious ‘invisible but definitely there’ Curtain..

Once I reached my early teens, I had somehow already been bitten by the foodie bug, and I attempted cooking a number of the dishes. Some where huge successes, some were not. I can still remember the reserved enthusiasm that my Austrian carrot pure soup was met with. However, under the section "Canada" I came across a recipe for apple cake – Kanada õunakook. I fell in love with it then and there – and as I said, this has proved to be a long-term relationship. This is the cake that I bake most often. This is the cake that is often requested when we go to visit friends and relatives. This is also the cake that has caused me most embarrassment. I remember early on, my uncle J. had asked me to bring along my delicious apple cake to his birthday party. Somehow I ended up using only a third of the flour in the batter that time, but too inexperienced at the time to see that something was clearly wrong with it. The resulting cake was dense, hard and utterly bitter (the cinnamon overkill) and was sitting still pretty much untouched on the table at the end of the party. Luckily, I seem to have redeemed myself since then and restored my Domestic Goddess reputation.

As I said, this recipe was called “Canadian apple cake” in my book, and that’s how my family knows it back home. During my years in Edinburgh, I’ve shared a kitchen with quite a few Canadians (Hi! Amanda!!! :), and although they all loved it, they couldn’t really see why it was Canadian. Canadian or not, it’s a delicious apple cake..

Canadian apple cake
(Kanada õunakook)



Batter:
300 ml plain flour, sifted (165 grams)
0.5 tsp fine salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
100 ml sugar (85 grams)
1 large egg
50 grams of butter, melted
100 ml milk (100 grams)
ca 2-3 large apples, cored and cut into small cubes

Crumb:
4 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp plain flour
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp butter

Mix the dry ingredients. Mix the butter, milk, and egg, pour into the dry mixture and mix. Fold in the apple cubes. Pour the batter into buttered loose bottomed cake tin.



Mix the crumb ingredients with a knife, sprinkle over the cake.


Bake at 200-210˚C for 30-40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean and the cake is nice golden brown.

Let it cool slightly (although it’s beautiful hot with a cold glass of milk). Sprinkle with icing sugar. Serve with vanilla ice cream, creme anglaise or on its own.

The moist apple pieces in the cinnamonny cake? And the cinnamonny caramelized crunchy topping?

Mmmmmmm!! I just thought of a way to Canadize this cake a bit, and maybe even make it live up to its name. What if I’d replace the brown sugar in the crumb mixture with maple sugar??? There’s an idea for next time...

UPDATES: here are links to some other foodbloggers who have kindly tried - and liked - my apple cake:

4 December 2005: Anne over at Anne's Food

12 December 2005: Drstel at Baby Rambutan

14 December 2005: Zubaida over at Kitchen Culture

16 January 2006: Shalimar over at Wanderlust

16 January 2007: Joey over at 80 Breakfasts

14 April 2007: Nupur over at One Hot Stove

A Scottish supper

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had another Estonian friend visiting and I treated Margit, her colleague and another MacEstonian to a Scottish meal. The Estonian visitors had heard rumours of haggis, the Scottish national dish of lamb bits and other things, so I decided to make some exactly a week ago. My choice of haggis is MacSween of Edinburgh, and I bought both a vegetarian and traditional version. These were served with neeps (alias mashed turnip, seasoned with butter, salt, pepper, and nutmeg) and tatties (potato mash, seasoned with salt, pepper, milk and butter).



We drank my current favourite whisky and Whisky Mac cocktails. For the latter you mix 1.5 oz Scotch whisky and 1 oz green ginger wine. I suspect my ginger wine (not easy to find!) wasn't the green one, as the cocktail was way too sweet compared to the one I usually get served in pubs (which I love).

And for the dessert, I made cranachan again, this time adding mascarpone cheese for the mixture.



Apart from mishaps with the whisky cocktail, the meal was lovely. My visiting friend was surprised that mashed turnip tastes so sweet and nice, and both of them bought some haggis to take home with. And they know where to find a recipe for cranachan..

Poppyseed lemon loaf

After making the delicious cranberry orange loaf the other day, I realised I needed to invest in a slightly larger loaf tin. It’s just that the one I had until now was a very small one, and although the cranberry loaf raised to the occasion, I could see that it was struggling for space. So I got a larger one from Tesco that looks sturdy and solid enough to last me for a while. This poppyseed lemon loaf was the first cake to be baked in my new loaf tin.

A recipe from the ‘White Christmas’ special issue of Estonian family journal Pere ja Kodu (December 2001). This indicates that it’s highly suitable for Christmas table (we’re supposed to have seven different cakes on Christmas table traditionally). However, I cannot think of a single reason why it wouldn’t be a nice addition to any other coffee table. The lemony tartness is universally tasty, even in the middle of the summer.

Poppyseed lemon loaf
(Sidruni-moonikeeks)
Serves 10



Cake:
125 grams of butter, room temperature
250 ml sugar
2 eggs
350 ml plain flour, sifted
3 Tbsp poppy seeds
1 Tbsp grated lemon zest
1 tsp baking powder
0.25 tsp salt
50 ml milk

Lemon syrup:
75 ml sugar
5 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp grated lemon zest

Cream the softened butter with sugar until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, incorporating them into the batter by whisking.
In a separate bowl, mix flour, poppy seeds, lemon zest, baking powder and salt.
Add milk and dry ingredients to the sugar and butter mixture.
Stir into a dough, pour into a buttered and floured (I use semolina for this purpose) 2 pound loaf tin.
Bake at 160˚C for 60 minutes.

For the syrup, heat the sugar, lemon juice and zest in a small saucepan on a low heat until boiling. Stir, until sugar dissolves and you get slightly sticky syrup.

Test if the loaf is baked, using a wooden stick. If it’s done, take out of the oven.
Now make ca 12 holes into the cake with the wooden stick, all the way to the bottom. Pour over the lemon syrup. Leave it to cool for half an hour.



Remove the cake from the tin and let it cool completely. Wrap in a foil and leave it for at least overnight, so the flavours could develop.