I was quite distracted with work and other commitments over the past week so I felt I was ignoring John’s dad. Normally I try to spoil him a little bit every day so he knows how special he is to both of us. When you get to 92, people should look after you but he’s been on his own for much of the past week.
I got some sleep last night and my feet are no longer sore so today I decided to spoil him with a dessert. Rob’s mother was from Norway and he’s been there to visit several times. He’s close to many of his relatives there and even has many of them on his Facebook friends (and so do I).
After scouring the net for Norwegian recipe ideas that a. I could understand and b. I knew what the ingredients were and c. actually had the ingredients in my pantry, I found a few for apple cake and came up with this one.
It took no time at all to put together. The longest time was whisking the butter and sugar (five minutes) and peeling an apple. When I took it out of the oven I brought it to him and said, “Does this look familiar?”
“No, should it?” he said. “It looks really good.”
“It’s a Norwegian apple cake,” I said, and then tried to say it in Norwegian. I got just a bit of an eyeroll and he said it for me. I think my pronunciation was close enough for anyone to understand me. (my opinion, mind you)
I’m pretty sure he felt spoiled because he had two pieces – with cream.
- 125 grams butter, melted
- 130 grams granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 3 tablespoons vanilla sugar or 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 125 grams all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1 large apple (you can use any apple you like)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon demerara sugar
- Preheat oven to 200C/400F
- Grease and flour an 8-inch cake pan (with removeable bottom) and set aside. (I had a 9-inch tart pan and that's what I used. The cake came out with some coaxing.
- In a small bowl combine the vanilla sugar, flour and baking powder and set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with a whisk, cream the melted butter and sugar with until light and fluffy and the sugar has dissolved. It will take about 5 minutes.
- Add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each egg.
- If you're using vanilla extract, add it after the eggs.
- Add half the flour mixture and all of the milk.
- Mix thoroughly and then add the remaining flour. Combine until no streaks of flour remain.
- Spread batter in the prepared cake pan.
- Core and cut the apple in half. Cut each half in to ⅛" slices and arrange on top of the cake batter in a decorative pattern.
- Sprinkle with a mixture of cinnamon and demerara sugar.
- Bake for about 35 minutes or until golden brown and cake is thoroughly cooked by testing with a toothpick.
- Serve warm or at room temperature and it's very good with whipped cream or ice cream.