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I haven’t done much cooking lately and haven’t felt much of an urge to cook either. Somehow days and evenings go by and I don’t even know what we had for dinner, or how I came to be standing by the stove at some point. All of a sudden the children are in bed and I’m lying on mine, exhausted and absent-mindedly scrolling down my phone until it is late enough that I can reasonably justify going to sleep. And all I can remember is my morning and everything that happened BEFORE I picked up everyone from school. The rest of the afternoon is a blur from which I emerge in complete oblivion, willing but unable to give a clear goal to the couple of hours that remain before the end of my day. The same thing has happened with weekends recently, to the point that by Monday morning, I am incapable of telling other well-meaning parents politely asking at drop-off, what we did exactly.
Perhaps it has been the accumulation of parties and celebrations that October unfailingly brings every year, between Halloween, my older son’s birthday and all the school events and parents’ get-togethers that mysteriously always get scheduled around that time. Perhaps I still haven’t adjusted to the pre-Covid version of New York that has slowly crept back on us, with its relentless mix of early morning bus rides to school, shuttling kids to activities, endless traffic jams and increasingly full schedules. Whatever the reason, weeks just whiz by and I haven’t been able to slow down and fully absorb the newly appeared pleasures of Fall, which I was so eagerly anticipating when we came back from summer vacation. To be fair, we didn’t have much of a real October, as the sultry Indian summer that usually follows us well into September decided to stick around a bit longer this year. So much so that leaves were still green in Central Park last week and have only started reddening over the past few days – or at least that’s when I started noticing them. But today we’ve had a proper rain storm, complete with gusts of winds that whammed our windows open and made me fear they would break. I worked from home all day and just made myself a cup of hot apple cider-flavored tea. I remembered that last Sunday was the marathon and how much I envied the runners for the perfect weather they had, one of those majestic New York crisp sunny days that make it the best city on earth just when you were beginning to doubt this basic truth.
In other words, it seems like I have finally entered the Fall, and nothing will seem more appropriate this weekend than making my grandmother’s apple cake – or what she used to call “le gâteau délicieux”. No one knows where this appellation came from, or where she got the recipe. To me, it was always just a few words scribbled on a blue stock card religiously stored in a small leather-bound folder that I recovered after my grandmother died nine years ago. This folder, and a flower-shaped garnet ring that was passed down to her from her own grandmother, were the only two things that I kept from her. She didn’t have many possessions and I myself did not feel the need to keep too many of her things, but the ring and the folder were sacred. I only wear the ring on special occasions but see it as a talisman of sorts. I wore it for a few months after my daughter’s birth, when I experienced a sudden bout of fear and disorientation regarding motherhood, my job and my precarious place in academia. I needed to have the ring with me then and peeked at it regularly throughout the day to give me strength and clarity (with often mitigated success I have to admit).
Those days are long gone and I haven’t worn the ring in what seems like years. But I find myself having the urge to bake this cake that I don’t think I have made since my grandmother died. A few years ago, I dabbled for a few weeks with several apple cake recipes and was quite satisfied with one I found in Cook’s Illustrated, that lived up to its promise of being the best apple cake the editors had ever come across. But it was a bit fussy to make and for some strange reason it didn’t occur to me then that I used to eat the perfect apple cake every Fall and Winter at my grandparents’ house. Along with the crepes we made in February and the raspberry sorbet that was a staple of our summers, it was one of the three desserts I baked regularly with my “mamie” and my very favorite cake as a child (I loved chocolate but didn’t like chocolate cake, don’t ask me why). I never felt the need to make another one. I remember its slightly gooey texture due to the mixture of melted butter, egg and sugar that we poured over the apple mid-cooking. It would brown very slightly on top and become crispy while the rest of the cake was scrumptiously soft and melting in your mouth. It was absolutely glorious and I hope I will not be disappointed when I make it with my boys this weekend. The recipe is below, on the picture for the French version and below for the English one. Ingredients This list is barely a list. Everything is measured in tablespoons, which is very unusual for a French recipe. But it works. The only thing I added was a tablespoon of vanilla extract. Update: I made the cake and was not disappointed. What I realized though is that it is barely a cake. More like apples set in a very light clafoutis-like base. Which means your apples need to be good (mine were from the farmer’s market), as they will not cook completely and remain the star of the show. This is a very simple cake indeed, and maybe nothing spectacular, but to me it tastes just like childhood. 8 Tbspoons flour. 1 teaspoon baking powder (in France baking powder usually comes in small packets and my grandmother’s recipe says “half a packet”). 5 Tbspoons milk
3 Tbspoons oil (I used canola, any other neutral-tasting oil will do) One egg 2 apples, cored, peeled and cut into slices (not too thin, not too thick) 75 grams / tablespoons butter
One egg
3 Tbspoons sugar
Mix the flour and baking powder together.
Then add all the liquid ingredients in no particular order, and mix. It is that simple and I love it.
You will end up with VERY LITTLE batter. Don’t fret, it will all work out in the end, if you use a small 8-inch pan. (if you use a bigger pan I would double the recipe, and you will end up with a more sturdy cake – which might be OK, I haven’t tried).
Mix in the apples and pour into your 8-inch cake pan.
Bake for 15 minutes at 220° C/ 420° F ( I think in my oven it might have been a little too hot).
Then pour the egg, sugar, and butter mixture on top and continue baking for another 10-15 minutes or so at 200°C/400°F. Total baking time should be about 35 minutes.
Serve warm if you can.
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