I had the biggest hankering for cake a few days ago that just happened to coincide with MR’s birthday. Like the start of any good craving, went to the internet and my collection of recipe books but nothing felt right. I knew I needed something small (it’s just the two of us, after all) and had to use ingredients I had on hand (I hate driving).

Thus, the mini French Apple Cake. It was everything I needed – moist texture, lightly sweetened, and super fragrant from the vanilla. Perfection in it’s simplicity.

Base recipe/instructions taken from here and here, but the proportions/steps were made up on the fly (the basic recipes make a 9″ cake, the pan I used was 6″ with 2″ high sides). I think it turned out pretty tasty, but will probably be tinkered with one of these days. The original recipes called for some rum, but I didn’t have any on hand so used dark brown sugar and increased the vanilla.

Ingredients

• 2 extra large eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1-1/2″ apples (used honeycrisp)
• pinch flake salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• Powdered sugar (as needed)

Not-So-Steps

• Buttered, lined (bottom and sides), and buttered again 6″ circle pan
• 350 oven
• Whisk dry ingredients
• Beaten eggs until light in color and foamed, add sugar, vanilla
• Whisk in flour & butter
• Fold in cubed apples (cored and peeled)
• Bake 50 min
• Served room temperature with lots of powdered sugar on top

Future Revisions

• increase to 2 apples, use 2 different apple types
• add 1 more egg yolk
• brown butter
• 1/4 cup of apple cider
• 40-45 min instead of 50 min baking time
• Fold dry ingredients
• Use rum?