David Lebovitz’s Apple Spice Cake

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I haven’t posted a recipe in a while and I thought I’d remedy that today. So fancy baking a cake this Easter weekend? I tried
this Apple
Spice Cake using one of David Lebovitz’s recipes for a recent potluck dinner
& it was a hit. David is a Paris-based pastry chef and writer, with several cookbooks to his credit. I have
been following his blog and I really love his writing style, not to mention the
tantalising photographs. And his irreverent tweets! In fact, I have just
ordered his book The Sweet Life in Paris; can’t wait to get my hands on it. I
was browsing his website, looking for cake inspiration, when I came across
this delicious-looking Apple Spice Cake recipe. Besides, I had just bought a new,
shiny red Bundt pan that I wanted to inaugurate! So here goes.

This recipe serves up eight generous portions.

You’ll need:

2 medium-sized, firm Apples, peeled, cored and
cubed
100g Butter
200g Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
200g Flour
120g plain Yogurt or Buttermilk
Extract of 1 Vanilla bean or 1tsp Vanilla
essence
2tsp Baking powder
1tsp ground Cinnamon
½ tsp grated Nutmeg
½ tsp ground Cloves
Some Cinnamon Sugar or plain icing sugar for
dusting (optional)

How to:

Melt 15g butter in a skillet and sauté the
apples over a medium heat, stirring them as little as possible.

Once they have
cooked (turned golden brown & soft), add 25g of sugar and the three spices.
Continue cooking till the apples are glazed. Set aside and allow to cool.

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease the cake
tin. I used a 1L Bundt pan. If you’re using a cake tin, a 20cm one should suffice for these proportions.

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Sift together the flour and baking powder and
set aside. If you’re using unsalted butter, add a pinch of salt to the dry mix.
Beat the rest of the butter (85g) and sugar (175g)
till light.
Add the eggs one at a time and beat well. Add
the vanilla.
Stir half of the dry mix in the egg batter and
then mix in the yogurt.
Add the rest of the dry mix and incorporate in
the batter. Mix in the spiced apple mixture prepared earlier.