If apples truly were the food of love we would be in business. Our garden walls are surrounded by espaliered apple trees of many different varieties. Some are ancient and gnarly but they are all flavoursome with an enormous range of sweet/sour. The stormy weather has brought a lot of them down, gazillions of windfalls that unfortunately the chickens aren’t interested in chomping through and, as we no longer keep pigs, we gather the best and the rest go to the compost. We have filled all our buckets and now we’re filling large plant pots. Our kitchen smells like a cider factory whilst I’m desperately trying to process them. Any that are perfect go in the freezer for making juice. Freezing apples to make juice means the juice doesn’t go cloudy and remains clear, it also means we can deal with the apples incrementally.
I googled what to do with windfalls and found lots of advice on how to handle taxes, keep cool, make a plan and to invest money. If only! I then added apples into the search bar and up came all the usual suggestions of juice, jelly, jam, cider, chutney, cakes and tarts so not very inspiring, I was more taken with the money ideas!
I have made some apple chutney and apple jelly and I will make some blackberry and apple jam when I get around to picking blackberries, but as we don’t have a shop any more, there’s not much point in making more than we can eat or share with our friends. In fact it’s easier to send all our friends home with bags full of apples.
Of course there are cakes and tarts. Apple Tart Tatin uses a lot of apples, we love these but there are only so many one can eat before turning into a roly-poly and they are quite a lot of work. Far simpler is this salted caramel upside down apple cake. This also uses up a lot of apples and the salted caramel is delightful.
I usually make this cake gluten-free but it can be made with regular flour so I’ll give the option to make it either way. It’s important to put the parchment/greaseproof paper in the bottom of the cake tin, otherwise the cake will be stuck and you’ll never get it out. Other than that, it’s dead easy to make, even the caramel. Delicious served with cream, custard or ice cream.
Salted Caramel Upside Down Apple Cake
The apples and caramel:
• 7-8 small eating apples
• 75g butter
• 150g sugar
• 2tbs cream
• quarter tsp salt
• 24cm cake tin with a removable base
Cut a circle of parchment paper to fit the bottom of the tin.
Pre-heat the oven 180ºc
Put the butter, sugar, cream and salt into a small saucepan and heat until everything has melted and begins to bubble, Cook gently for 4-5 minutes until smooth, creamy and beginning to go golden. Watch it carefully. Give the pan a little swirl with your wrist rather than stirring and, as soon as it is golden all over, remove from the heat and pour over the base of your lined cake tin. Be careful, caramel is very hot. Peel and core the apples. I cut the apples into quarters and then into eighths. Pack the apples tightly into the cake tin on top of the caramel. I do this in concentric circles but this is not that important, as you can’t see them when the cake is tipped out but it does ensure equal distribution. Either way it’s important that the bottom is jammed full with apple pieces.
The cake batter:
• 175g butter at room temperature
• 175g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2tsp vanilla essence
• 75g ground almonds
• 90g regular flour OR for g/f use 60g rice flour and 30g potato flour
• 1tsp baking powder.
Beat the butter, sugar and eggs together – by hand, in a food processor or a mixer. I add the eggs one by one, and mix or buzz until soft and creamy. Add in the dry ingredients then mix again until smooth. Pour the batter over the apples, level out with a spatula then bake for 40-50 minutes. Test to see if the cake is ready with a clean dry knife. Insert it in the middle and if it comes out clean the cake is ready(disregard caramel, we’re talking cake batter here). If not cook for another five minutes and test again. Allow the cake to cool for half an hour then run a small sharp knife around the edge of the cake. Release from the tin. Put a plate over the cake tin then invert. The cake will land on the plate sponge side down. Peel back the parchment paper and you’re ready to go.
Delicious with cream, custard or ice cream.
Here’s hoping for an Indian summer!
Karen, Lettercollum Kitchen Project, Timoleague
info@lettercollum.ie
www.lettercollum.ie
023 8846251
