Blurb: This was a staple apple recipe that my Mum made and still makes. It is truly a comfort food: sweet, creamy and crunchy. The recipe I have was typed by my Mum on my Dad’s Spanish Underwood typewriter with the ñ key that he brought from Cuba when he came here in the 1950s to go to college. Always a family favorite this cake (kuchen in German) was frequently served at family gatherings and can be seen in any of my mother’s hundreds or maybe thousands of Kodak slides capturing people joyfully eating. People get older in the photographs throughout the years, but the Apfelkuchen remains the same. A pretty cake, one almost hates to cut into it, but once the first slice is made the dessert disappears quickly. I don’t know the recipe’s provenance. My Mum’s family hails from the old Hungarian VAS, a region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in what is now Northern Slovenia and the Southern Burgenland, Österreich (Austria). Her mother’s family lived and still have property in Jennersdorf. Her father’s family lived for centuries on a farm with bee hives in Seregháza (Hungarian) now Serdicia, Prekmurje, and Maribor, both in present day Slovenia. The family from Maribor vanished during WWII. KCH
Ingredients:
- 2 c sifted flour
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ c butter or margarine
- ¼ c sugar
- ¼ tsp baking powder
- 3 green apples, sliced
- 3/4 c sugar
- 1 TSP cinnamon
- Dash of Mace
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- 2 egg yolks
- 1c heavy cream
Instructions:
- Oven 400 degrees – Baking time: 15 min
- Baking time 45 minutes serves 9
- Sift flour, ¼ c sugar, salt and baking powder into a bowl.
- Cut in butter or margarine, using a pastry blender or two knives, until it reaches the consistency of corn meal.
- Pack into an ungreased spring form pan (with removable bottom and sides) Press the crumbs firmly against t the bottom and sides of the spring form pan.
- Arrange the apple slices attractively in the crust following the contours of the pan, in two layers, sprinkling the mixture of sugar and spice generously over each layer.
- Bake in a quick oven for 15 minutes.
- In a small bowl beat the egg yolks and stir in the heavy cream.
- Pour evenly over the fruit in the kuchen and continue baking for 30 minutes more.
- Lower oven temp to 350.
- Remove from oven and cool slowly and thoroughly in the baking pan.
- To serve run a thin knife or spatula about the edge to loosen the crust.
