Apple of my...Nahhhh.

Hello bloglings. You may ask, why are you posting so late! (or early, depending on how you look at it) If you were noticing the time stamp at all, that is. Well, I have a penchant for starting complicated recipes much later than I really ought to. I started with the recipe below at a decent hour, figuring that baking apples before onions was a good idea. But I didn't plan on the hour and fifteen minutes of baking on the onion dish! You might think that those two dishes make for strange bedfellows but let me digress......

This past winter E came to visit (see grapefruit risotto post here - link coming), shortly after he returned to NY he passed along a recipe from the time he spent in Japan. I've been holding on to this recipe awhile and meaning to make it. Today I followed the advice, not of the mythical messenger, but rather the major shoe manufacturer and 'just did it'. See photo essay below (note: I will add a photo of the final product tomorrow when there's sunlight again. The photos after dark all turned out crap.)


It's a very simple recipe, make sure to slice your apples thin as can be for maximum coverage.


Every thing can be mixed by hand, which is a nice change from all of those 'whip for 10 minutes on extra high' recipes. Mmmm, yogurt.


Use your creativity to cover the bottom layer of batter in fun and unique patterns!

I had planned to decorate the top with a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar but thought better of it and decided to try the recipe as is. The batter is delicious*, light, tangy, full of promise. The cake baked beautifully, toasty brown on top and springy to the touch. Although it's by all means a good and decent cake, it lacked something for me. If I were to make it again I would think about substituting the apples with something a little more hardcore....like apricot jam and dried apricot bits. Something to liven it up and give it some color. The cake ends up being a little more dense than I usually go for (I am a light and fluffy or thick and moist sort of cake lover), in fact it reminds me a bit of mochi and some of the more glutinous dessert offerings out there (rosa, hal and al, this recipes for you!) Do try it and let me know what you think.

Japanese Green Apple Cake

 2 C flour
1 C sugar
1/2 C veg. oil
1 t baking powder
2 eggs
1 C plain yogurt
2 tart green apples
 
-Preheat to 350F
-Peel apples and slice as thin as possible
-Mix oil, eggs and sugar in bowl.
-Add yogurt to mix and continue mixing, then add baking powder and flour gradually. 
-When well mixed (batter will be quite dense), spread half of the batter on a round baking dish that has been thinly coated in
butter and flour along the bottom/sides. 
-Cover the batter w/ apples, overlapping slightly. 
-Cover apples w/ remaining batter. 
-Bake ~50 mins or until golden brown.  
-Let sit until cool/lukewarm (gives the batter a chance to come together a bit)


The experiment I was sitting up and waiting to cool will be posted on tomorrow. It's 2.30 am practically and the foodblogger is tired! You'll just have to be delightfully surprised later ;)





*I know, I know. Bad blogger! Don't taste batter using raw eggs! You've been dually warned.