Calvados Apple Cake—serves 6- 8

Ingredients

• 8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter softened or room temperature
• 1 -1/3 cups
• 1/8  teaspoon salt (I used sea salt)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (I whisked flour and baking powder in separate bowl before putting in mixture)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 4 Gala or other flavorful apples, peeled, cored and each cut into 8 slices (2 huge Honey Crisp is more than enough and it’ll probably grant you extras for a smaller cake for yourself. I used the 8 slice apple corer and then sliced the apples slices in 1/2 again.)
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon Calvados or apple brandy. (I used regular brandy but rum might be good as well)
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 Tablespoon Turbinado Sugar for the top sprinkling (can be regular sugar as well)

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Slice the apples and place in a large bowl.
3. Mix the ginger, cinnamon, lemon zest and juice, and brandy in a separate small bowl and then place this into the apple slices carefully turning the slices over to get them all coated.
4. Butter a 9-inch spring form pan, and set aside. (I used parchment paper and put the spring form on a pizza pan which was lined with parchment paper.)
5. In bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (I used regular beater attachment), combine the 8 ounces (2 cubes) softened butter, 1 1/3 cups regular sugar and the sea salt. Mix until blended.
6. Add the eggs and whisk/beat until smooth.
7. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the pre-whisked flour and baking powder until thoroughly mixed.
8. Fold into the mixture a few of the apple slices or bits, and spread the batter evenly in pan. The mixture will be very stiff so spread it around with a rubber spatula.
9. On the top of the batter, lay the remainder of the apple slices (make sure these are quite thinly sliced) in a concentric pattern.  Sprinkle the top with the Turbinado (can be regular sugar or even brown as well) sugar. The cake will rise.
10. Bake until a toothpick inserted into center of cake dough comes out clean and apples are golden and tender, about 65 minutes.
11. Serve warm or at room temperature.

More Hints or descriptions:

• This is a dense East European kind of cake.
• Think about putting apricot jam glaze on top.
• I made a lemon sauce to go with it
• You can make this a day ahead, but don’t put a bowl over it; just leave it out and place some saran on it.
• You can use a diversity of apples—sweet, sour etc.

Easy Lemon sauce

1 tsp. grated lemon, 1/2 C. lemon juice, 1/2 C. sugar, 1 Tblsp. cornstarch in a small pan; bring to a boil, turn to simmer for 2-3 minutes until thickened.  Add 1 tsp. fresh OJ.  Serve warm.