The Ultimate Apple Cake Mission - June: Old Bavarian apple cake

The Ultimate Apple Cake Mission is not yet over. For June (I know, it is the first day of July but this cake was baked in June), I present to you the Altbayrischer Apfelkuchen or Old Bavarian apple cake in English. This cake allowed me to overcome a fear of mine. No, not chickens, babies or big scary ducks but the GUGELHUPF tin! The gugelhupf tin had been staring at me each time I opened the baking cupboard for the past...years... and I eventually built up the confidence to use it.

A Gugelhupf tin is used to make a Gugelhupf cake, which translates to a 'hood yeast' cake. I think cakes made in these tins always look so pretty, surrounded by the swirls of the tin but was always worried that my cake would become stuck inside. A disaster.

Hello...Newman...Gugelhupf tin...

Fortunately the cake was a success. You are not able to line Gugelhupf tins with baking paper. Instead you must grease the tin very well. I used butter and flour and made sure each part of the tin was covered. SUCCESS! :)

Another success of the cake as using rum essence. Well, I think it was a success. I have never tasted rum before, so could not compare rum essence flaour to proper rum flavour. However, I thought it was fine.

One thing that really annoyed me about making this cake was how much cake mix it produces! I had to use the biggest mixing bowl I could find and it was still too much mix. I had mix everywhere; on my hands, on the rim of the bowl, on the bench and on the fridge!

I was thinking I should have hired a cement mixer to mix the cake!

Recipe time?

Yep:)

Altbayrischer Apfelkuchen - Old Bavarian Apple Cake

This recipe is from Chefkoch.de and was submitted by  Sofi

I changed the recipe by using rum essence instead of real rum, almond meal instead of hazelnut meal and I forgot to add sugar and salt to the egg whites

What you need

• 500g apples
• 1/2 a tube of rum essence (if using the German RUF rum essence that is packed into little tubes. If using other rum essences, I would say a quarter of  a teaspoon, or even less? I don't know, test it out bit by bit :) ) OR, 2 tablespoons real rum
• 250g butter
• 200g sugar
• 4 eggs, separated
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 200g flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 125g almond meal
• 2 tablespoons cocoa
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

What you need to do

1.  Preheat oven to 175 degrees and thoroughly grease a Gugelhupf tin.
2. Peel and chop the apples into little chunks. If using real rum, soak the apples in the rum.
3. Cream sugar and egg yolks and add the vanilla.
4. In a separate bowl combine the flour with baking powder, almond meal, cocoa and cinnamon. Once combined, add to the egg yolk mixture with the apples.
5. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Combine this with the other mixture.
6. Pour the mixture into the Gugelhupf tin and bake for 1-1.5 hours.
7. Allow the cake to cool in the tin.
8. Once cooled, turn the tin upside down onto a plate to release the cake. You may need to hit the tin a few times to get the cake out.
9. Dust with icing sugar.

For an apple cake I was dispapointed with the weakness of the apples. They did not come through all too well, most likely over powered by the rum flavouring. However my family really enjoyed the cake. I was just impressed by the Gugelhupf tin:)

This is a very heavy cake; 250g butter, 200g flour, 200g sugar.... so beware! Unfortunately the cake made me quite ill in the digestive department. How can I explain this nicely? Ummm, I had bad stomach aches and did not visit a certain room in my house for four days after eating this. I was thinking of taking sick leave as I felt so horrible! The flour really did not agree with me and I only had one slice! *cries*

Cake usually does not affect me that badly. I think that since giving up grains my tolerance to even the tiniest bit has worsened. Oh well, I'll just have to eat more bacon instead. I am fine with that:)