When we were in southern France we had what might have been the greatest meal of our lives. We ordered a cassoulet (partly because it was the only thing on a very long menu that we remotely understood, not speaking a bit of French ourselves and also because cassoulet seemed quintessentially french), wine, and a cheese plate.
When we were finished with our meal the chef/owner came out and asked us how everything was ( thankfully she spoke English). After giving much praise and sounding like the stupid Americans that we are, we asked her for a dessert recommendation and she asked "well what did you have for dinner?" ahhhh what a watershed foody moment, asking what we ate for dinner to pair a dessert-I think G. shed a tear! Anyways after describing our meal she recommended (without hesitation) an apple cake. It was such an amazing dessert and I wish I'd taken a photo. Ever since then I've wanted to recreate it, but haven't really know what recipe to use.
When we got the most recent version of the Canal House cookbook and I saw the apple cake recipe in the back I thought this might be it. Honestly, Canal House describes the cake as Italian not French. But I figured, hey, the countries are geographically close, and surely delicious cake recipes cross borders.
I found some apples at the farmer's market this past Wednesday (who knew they started growing now?!?) and so this seemed the perfect opportunity to try the recipe.
The recipe is simple. It calls for butter, sugar, milk, an egg, vanilla extract, flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt. You make the cake batter, place in a springform pan, and then carefully arrange apple slices in the batter.
This recipe was good, but not great. I want to try again with different apples (maybe Golden Delicious, which the Canal house recommends), and with smaller slices.
I've also been searching the web and seeing all sorts of different takes on similar cakes:
here, here, and here, for example.
So many possibilities....so little time.
