Cinnamon szarlotka (Polish apple cake)

Is this a good time for apple cake? A friend told me she didn’t think so. The apples are still too sour, apparently. Hmm. Of course they’re sour. They wanted to ride the Trans-Siberian Railway to Lake Baikal and got turned back at the border.

Let me clear one thing up straight away: I didn’t make apple cake today because of that mess in the east. The reason was utterly mundane. I went to Lidl and apples were on offer. And I, like a fool, pounced. Not quite like the crowds pouncing on Crocs a while back (yes, those hideous slip-ons, or whatever they are), but I pounced all the same. The truth is, unfortunately, I don’t eat apples all that often. And I only like them firm and tart. Sweet ones, especially those woolly ones, do absolutely nothing for me.

Anyway, the apples were ridiculously cheap, so I bought two kilos. It wasn’t entirely a case of buying them just because they were on offer. I knew straight away I wouldn’t eat them all. Why not make an apple cake, I thought. A good opportunity is no bad thing, as the oldest Indians say.

So here’s the apple cake recipe. A little of it borrowed (from here), but mostly improvised. It turned out pretty well. Very cinnamony, just the way I like it best. It isn’t terribly sweet. The pastry is short and sandy. There aren’t too many apples, so they don’t overwhelm it. Perhaps that means it isn’t a classic szarlotka, where the apples really do take over. This is how I like it, which is why, as usual, I recommend it.

Worst of all, once I’d baked it I remembered I’d meant to put raisins in it. I forgot. You can add some to the apples for a more fragrant cake.

At a glance: 

Prep time: 20 minutes

Chilling time for the pastry before baking: 30 minutes

Oven temperature: 175 degrees Celsius

Baking time: 50 minutes

Serves: about 10 modest portions

Calories: with a scoop of ice cream (preferably vanilla) and whipped cream, there are so many these are the first calories visible from outer space

Ingredients for a lovely apple cake:

• about 2 kilograms of apples (no idea what kind. They were cheap at Lidl so I bought them. Probably returns from Russia)
• 400 grams flour (I’d like to say wheat flour, but I missed the mark: it was krupczatka, the coarse kind)
• 200 grams butter (not straight from the fridge)
• half a glass of icing sugar
• 1 packet vanilla sugar
• a tablespoon of baking powder
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 tablespoons cream, 18% fat (soured)
• half a packet of cinnamon (ground)
• 8 tablespoons cane sugar
• 2 tablespoons potato starch
• 2 tablespoons breadcrumbs

How to make a little something with apples:

Into a deep bowl went the flour, icing sugar, vanilla sugar, baking powder, egg yolks, sour cream and butter. I worked it all into a dough. It’s buttery but doesn’t stick.

I divided the dough into unequal portions (about 3/4 and 1/4). I lined the bottom of a rectangular tin with the larger piece and put the other into a sandwich bag. I pricked the dough in the tin with a long cocktail stick (see the photo below) and covered it with foil. Both the tin and the bag went into the fridge for half an hour.

I got on with the apples. I peeled them thoroughly, cut out the cores with the pips and chopped them into pieces that weren’t too big.

I heated a tablespoon and a half of butter in a frying pan and added the apples. I fried them briefly, sprinkled them with cinnamon and mixed well. I added 6 tablespoons of cane sugar and stirred thoroughly. I cooked them over a low heat until the sugar dissolved, then covered the pan and let them stew for about 20 minutes, checking frequently that the sugar wasn’t burning (and stirring).

After 20 minutes I added 2 tablespoons of potato starch. I stirred well and took the pan off the “flame” (you can see the cooked apples in the photo below).

I took the tin with the pastry out of the fridge. I sprinkled 2 tablespoons of breadcrumbs over the pastry, spreading them over the entire surface. On went the apples. Using the coarse side of a grater, I grated the remaining dough (the piece in the sandwich bag) over the top.

I preheated the oven to 175 degrees Celsius and baked the cake for about 50 minutes. I recommend serving it with ice cream. A dusting of icing sugar is also recommended: it makes the cake especially sweet (the photos show it fresh from the oven before dusting, and with a scoop of sweet cream ice cream). Enjoy 🙂