Guys, I was fortunate enough to participate in a strudel online class by the Austrian Astrid Lamarche. I was not paid to say this, I really enjoyed that strudel class. If you want to check Astrid’s Instagram, you will be amazed as to how big she manages to stretch out strudel dough. So I got super ambitious and swore to myself, I want to get as good as she is. If she manages to only use 200 grams of flour (a typical amount for strudel) to stretch the dough over her entire dining table, I want to try that, too! And it worked, of course there still is room for improvement, but I was so happy that this is a super classic and traditional Austrian strudel. So below I am sharing the recipe with you guys.
Ole from the German blog Nimmersatt has a legendary apple cake on his blog, which has been on my baking list forever. I finally have come around to making it. The recipe is from his beloved granny (actually not his real grandma, but a neighbor that took him under her wings) that sounds very much like my own grandma. Just as granny Hanna would always have a cake in the house and offer it to friends and family, so did my grandma. My grandma was a very good cook and always made something sweet. If it was somebody’s birthday, there would be so much cake and so many different pastries that the table would almost break down. She always made too much, but that is how she liked it. Usually her cakes were simple, one typical one would be a sheet cake with fruits and crumbs or peppernuts.
This blog post contains advertisement for Braeburn apples, Südtiroler Apfel g.g.A.
Yay, today I am present a recipe from Argentina, an apple cake slash bread pudding, which is prepared similarly to “flan“. I was fortunate enough to make this cake named “tarantella de manzana” with tart apples, the variety Südtiroler Apfel g.g.A. When the package arrived with Braeburn apples, I knew exactly what I wanted to make. But let’s get back to this dessert from Argentina. Legend has it that this cake is named after an Italian dance (tarantella) as a) Italian immigrants supposedly invented this cake in Buenos Aires and b) this cake is a bit wiggly when you take it out of the oven. You either need to dance as you are so excited for being able to eat this delicious cake, or the wiggly movement actually is similar to the movement of the dance. If you are interested in further theories, check out this article in Spanish. Regardless of its origin, this cake is so popular, you will find it basically on every menue of any restaurant in Buenos Aires.
Viennese apple strudel, would you like a piece? Yes, we are going to make this beauty from scratch, strudel dough is actually not as hard as you may think. Just be sure you have enough time at hand when you make the dough because it needs a pretty long resting period. That was actually what I tried to ignore this time and that’s why my first dough had a lot of holes and couldn’t be strechted properly. So feel free to start the dough the day beforehand. Resting it more than a few hours, e.g. overnight is no problem at all, you just give the gluten more time to develop. And then you will be rewarded with a delicious dessert with lots of apple flavor!
Today I am doing a recap, 12 recipes with apples. I normally don’t like to eat a plain apple just like that, but I am all in, especially in fall and winter when it comes to apple slices in porridge, somehow app by les are extra perfect for this occasion. This year we got to do apple picking already. Some farms close to Munich offer this option. We went to the Holzerhof in Ismaning (I am not paid to mention this). You can pick apples as well as plums and it is a super pleasant experience. When you get there, they will let you know which type of apple you may find where and then let you to it, so you are free to try whatever apple type you want. I took home quite a big batch and had to make a lot of things with apples. So for that reason let me give you my 12 favorite reipces with apples:
Cakes and Cupcakes
#1 Apple Almond Cake, you will find apples inside the dough as well as part of a compote. The topping contains another apple for decoration.
Today I am going to introduce Germany’s answer to apple pie: German apple cake. It consists of a double pie crust, lots of apple filling and is then glazed. Compared to American apple pie, it looks rather plain. It doesn’t have any decorations, but believe me, this doesn’t mean that it tastes any less! This year we went apple picking already and so I decided to make this good old German apple cake. Sometimes you just crave the classics, so today you get this very traditional German apple cake.
Finally an American recipe again: Apple Pie! This one has an all-butter pie crust, lots of apples, and caramel sauce. I do already have an apple cranberry pie on this blog as well as apple pie with a cream cheese crust. The one you see here is an apple pie with caramel, not only as an extra drizzle, but mixed with the filling. And for that reason I didn’t add any further sugar to the filling, the caramel sweetens the apples enough. I should have known that my husband would finish off this pie in a second, he loves pies and it basically was gone once I put it down on the plate. But hey, no problem, just make another one! What’s not to like about apples, and caramel?
Butter Cake! Today you will get a butter cake with lots of apples, almonds, and caramel sauce. I warn you, this is a yeast dough that requires you to start at least the night before and that needs a few hours of rising before you can actually bake it. But if you bear with me and go through all the hassle, I can promise you, this is an ultra fluffy yeast dough with a nice crunch at the same time. Think of baked apples and caramel sauce as the addition to this delicious cake and you will love this one.
I often take cake to work. My colleagues are some of my regular test eaters. And since I bring cake to work often, I usually can tell if a recipe stands out. That was definitely the case with this apple almond cake. Suddenly I found post-its saying “Thank you to our baking queen” or “Thanks for making my Thursday morning much sweeter.” My conclusion? This apple almond cake is a keeper, it is a keeper because no other cake has received as many post-it notes. It definitely needs to be posted on the blog. If you want apples in your coffee cake, this is the cake to choose. You have some apple in the cake dough, a lot of apple compote on the top with some nicely browned almonds plus one full apple as pretty decoration on the top. I mean, you got APPLE cake for sure with this one.