Categories: Apples, Cake, Dessert
Ingredients
- Cake:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 3/4 cup sugar, plus
- 2 tablespoons sugar, for sprinkling on apples
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
- 3 golden delicious apples, peeled, quartered, and cored
- Glaze:
- 1/2 cup apricot preserves
- 2 tablespoons water
Directions
-
Butter a 10 inch round pan (2 inches deep) and line with a disk of buttered parchment; set aside.
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Position oven rack in middle of oven; preheat to 350°.
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In a bowl, stir the flour, baking powder, and salt together; set aside.
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Add butter and ¾ cup sugar to the bowl of an electric mixer and beat with paddle on medium speed until soft and light, about 3-4 minutes.
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Beat in 1 egg until smooth, beat in the vanilla and lemon zest.
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Beat in about 1/3 of the flour mixture until smooth, and then beat in another egg.
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Beat in another 1/3 of the flour mixture and then beat in the remaining egg.
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Stop and scrape the bowl and paddle, and then beat in the remaining flour mixture.
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Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
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Arrange 11 of the apple quarters, core side down, on the batter, in a circle near the edges of the pan.
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Place the last apple quarter in the center of the batter; sprinkle the apples with the 2 tablespoons of sugar.
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Bake the cake until the apples have softened, about 1 hour; the batter will definitely be baked through in this amount of time.
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Cook the cake on a rack in the pan, then unmold it onto another rack and lift away the first rack and replace it with a platter; invert cake again and lift off the top rack.
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Make the glaze: stir the preserves and water together in a small saucepan; cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the glaze comes to a simmer.
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Strain the glaze into another pan and place it back on the heat; allow the glaze to reduce until it is slightly sticky and no longer watery, about 2 minutes.
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Immediately pain the hot glaze onto the apple quarters, using a brush; let the glaze cool and set before serving the cake.
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Cut the cake into wedges; a little whipped cream would be good with this cake.