Apfel Kuchen Sehr Fine...

One day soon I hope to have the opportunity to make this for a bunch of guys who work too hard... I'd love to see them all sitting down to a piece of this and a coffee and just...stopping for a while... Trevor this is the one I was telling you that my grandfather used to make...

There is something very comforting about the smell of this particular cake baking..maybe it's memories from being very short in a kitchen that smelled just so, watching my grandfather's hands peeling apples and cracking eggs...he was a hard working man, too, always driving his tractor around, splitting wood for the fire, working in the bush... he had this old gray coat and a cap that he always wore and I can still smell the oil and woodsmoke that emanated from it when he hung it in the garage... I have the most wonderful picture of him, I'll add it to this soon... when he was in his 80's he had some vertebrae fused in his back and was supposed to stay in bed for a week after he came home from the hospital..my grandmother went upstairs to take him some soup and he was gone... into the bush on his tractor... he let me steer when I was a little bitty thing and I remember the rolling motion of it as it navigated the ruts in the bush road, and of never being nervous because he was there...

When he was 90 he had the house converted to wood heat from oil, and filled the woodshed to the brim, himself, the April before he died, at 94... he had a hug like a steel trap and a heart of gold, and Papa, I miss you... "Ohhh, guuurrrl..." he would say, in his thick Polish accent... his eyes twinkling and his dear old face creased into a big grin...

Apfel Kuchen Sehr Fine
( This is NOT a clean-eating or in any way diet-conscious recipe just so you know ahead of time! )



3 - 5 apples, peeled, cored... don't slice them up!!
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup milk
powdered sugar



Preheat your oven to 350° F, and grease the bottom and sides of a 10 inch springform pan. It's always worth investing a little in a decent one of these, especially since the recipe for the BEST low carb cheesecake on the planet is coming up soon....
Prepare your apples..you can make concentric circles of quartered apples or create your own design.
Peel, quarter, and core apples. Thinly slice each quarter several times without cutting all the way through. Do this just before you place them on the cake. The apples "open" when they are baked.

In a medium bowl, beat butter and sugar, eggs and lemon juice until creamy....it's tempting to lick the spoon because it smells really good at this point but don't!! Raw eggs = uncool physical reactions! ( You can also add 1/2 to 1 tsp. almond flavoring instead of or as well as the lemon juice)

Blend flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir this into your sugar mixture alternately with the milk
Spread the batter GENTLY  in your pan and arrange your apples as you wish..
Bake 50 to 55 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean
Cool this in the pan on a wire rack. Carefully remove the finished cake from pan and dust with powdered sugar... if you want to make it look really nice, don't forget to put waxed paper under the edges of your cake, on your plate, before you dust with the sugar, and then remove the wax paper along with the extra sugar so your cake plate is clean...

This cake is moist, flavourful, apple-y ( is that even a word?) and different and I love it... I haven't made it in ages but I will soon!  Come East, boys... stop in and set for a spell...