After 25 years of existence I still haven't shaken the sweet tooth the way my friends and family have. I am one of the few who always want dessert after dinner - sometimes lunch - and I drink sweet tea like it's going out of style. My dear father has mentioned a few times that my ever-popular whoopie pies are, at times, a bit too sweet.
But I have found a compromise we all can enjoy! After flipping through old cookbooks I found a recipe for Blackberry and Apple Cake, a cake I had always wanted to try but put off during college and forgotten about afterwards. Forgotten no more! This cake has much less sugar than any other sweets I've made yet it is flavorful and scrumptious, sort of like moistened pannetone. The book recommends sprinkling a little raw sugar on top before baking to achieve a slightly sweet-crunchy texture but I prefer a more classic topping: frosting. I don't use any ordinary frosting on this cakelet; through some miracle I came up with a rich mascarpone frosting that is also (relatively) low in sugar. Read on my hungry friends!
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| Oh the possibilities! |
Now the first time I made this cake a lot of it ended up sticking to the pan, even though I buttered it. An easier solution is to line the cake pan with some parchment paper... this will result in an irregular side but I like the way it looks. Here I used some Martha Stewart parchment-foil paper. It's a little pricey so I save it for the good stuff.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and line the pan, foil side down.
The amateur book I was following doesn't order you to mix the wet and dry ingredients separately before integrating all elements. I tried adding the ingredients one by one and it was actually more difficult to mix the butter and sugar... I guess Crisco (I use half Crisco and half butter for the whoopie pies) makes everything go down more smoothly.
Anyways, the ingredients and recipe are so simple I could make this cake in my sleep. Mix
- 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter
- 1 cup flour
- 1/2 cup almond flour (I used almond meal, it worked just fine)
- 2 eggs
- 6 tablespoons apple juice
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- a few drops of vanilla extract
Blend until smooth.
Peel and chop one Granny Smith apple and wash one cup of blackberries. Fold the apples and blackberries into the batter.
Honestly I found one entire apple and one cup of berries a bit overwhelming for the batter so I ate a few pieces. Don't be afraid to do the same.
Pour the batter into the parchment-lined pan...
.. and bake away! Set your timer for 50 minutes.
Why so long? Because this cake is pretty moist and you don't want it to be undercooked or it will fall apart. Big cake fail.
Let the cake cool for a good long while... I took the cake out, turned off the oven, and let the cakelet sit for over an hour. Cakes that are not properly cooled can also crumble upon impact. Ever since I was a little girl, waiting for the cake to cool has always been difficult for me. But patience pays off.
While the cake cools, make the mascarpone frosting! Mascarpone is pretty much Italian cream cheese... being Italian, it has a richer flavor than regular cream cheese. Empty the contents of an 8-ounce tub of mascarpone into a bowl along with 3/4 cup of powdered sugar and a dash of vanilla extract. Give it a whirl with the hand mixer and voila! Super-easy homemade frosting. You could use more powdered sugar but it really isn't necessary with the mascarpone.
Transfer cooled cake to a plate. I like to flip it upside-down since the bottom provides a flat surface for frosting and I am no good at leveling cakes.
... and smooth out. I kept the sides bare but feel free to cover those up, too.
Recipe for the Blackberry and Apple Cake from The Redwall Cookbook by Brian Jacques. My sister and I loved reading this series when we were young and I even taught a Pass/No Pass class on it in college. The children's books are superfluously descriptive, due in part to Jacques original intention of creating stories for blind children. Now with The Redwall Cookbook (snatched used on amazon.com) those famous Redwall feasts that fill fifty or so pages of each episode can come to your dinner table!
Recipe for the mascarpone frosting derived from various ice cream recipes by a drunk British woman who preferred ice cream made with the cheese and my plentiful experiences with whipping up homemade frosting.
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