I want to be someone that can reliably bake a cake. From the texture, to the flavor, to the assembly and final presentation, the goal is both consistency and delight. Is it your birthday? Let me bake you a cake. I love a celebration cake and birthdays are obviously the easiest reason, but anything will do. The satisfaction that comes from baking a cake from scratch and making it look at least presentable is a major motivator as well. Maybe it’s just me, but the joy of being gifted a cake is just that, a smiling pleasing joy. Even if it’s bought from a bakery, it’s just nice.

As with everything I like to learn, I want that foundation. I want an understanding of why this cake capital-F-Failed, why this one is collapsing or just not rising at all? What better place to start than Rose Levy Beranbaum. The Cake Bible, much like her Bread Bible, is this heartwarming text of how and why and gentle science that isn’t overwhelming or hard to follow. She has such a lovely desire to share her excitement and enthusiasm towards baking (the little anecdote of writing her thesis about the “Sifting Flour Affects the Quality of a Yellow Cake”? Be still my heart! (You can download it from Beranbaum’s blog here)). And what better place to start than page 1 (or 25…), with a pound cake. And, this is a good pound cake. It’s not heavy, or dry, or bland. It’s CAKE. Pure cake. Which is great, as it bodes well for her recipes coming next. What goes on this cake? Powdered sugar, or, homemade apple butter, which may be the best use of a surplus of CSA apples. Without question the best thing to come from my first experience with a CSA (which was, on a whole, unfortunately, overwhelmingly disappointing). While this cake is arguably a vehicle for the apply butter, it definitely stands well on its own.

I was surprised to discover how easy apple butter is to make, and I mean basic, not a fake easy of one hundred steps. Particularly with a slow cooker. I had a trial run with pear butter, which turned out fine, but not great due to the overwhelmingly INCORRECT guidance that you MUST keep the lid cracked to avoid liquid build up. DO NOT DO THIS. It just resulted in nearly dehydrated pears (or almost the opposite of a fruit butter). Luckily, dehydrated pears can be rehydrated, and the butter was saved, but my second round with apples was much more successful due to keeping the lid closed.

Apple Butter with Ginger

Disclaimer here, there’s a lot of room for flexibility in this recipe. One of the recipes had four (!!) cups of sugar, which is crazy. Feel free to increase for a sweeter butter, but I think 2 cups max is a safe bet…you can also increase you’re favorite of the spices to find the right balance for you!

5 or 6 apples, peeled, cored and chopped (roughly is fine)
half a thumb of ginger, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cardamom
1 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp clove

Add apples and ginger to the slow cooker on high.
Combine sugar and spices in bowl to mix, then pour over apples and ginger, stirring to coat.
After an hour on high, turn the slow cooker on low and leave for 8-10 hours. If you’re awake (I did this at night..) you can give it a stir every hour or so, but not necessary.
Mash apples (with a masher, or even a whisk will work) and allow to cook for another hour or two with the lid off. Butter should be dark brown and thick. You can test doneness by taking a spoonful and letting it cool on the counter. Check for water separation, if there’s none, it’s done.
For a finer texture pass through sieve (and remove ginger chunks), or blend (with ginger chunks for a bigger ginger kick.)

Can be stored in the fridge for about a week, or freezer for a month.

Interesting take away for this cake, by adding the butter to the dry ingredients before adding more liquid, the butter is able to coat the flour and prevent over working the gluten which would create a tougher cake.

Perfect Pound Cake
From Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cake Bible

45 g milk (3 tbls)
3 large eggs
6 g teaspoons vanilla (1½ tsp)
150 g sifted cake flour (1½ cups)
150 g sugar (¾ cup)
3.7 g baking powder (¾ tsp)
¼ tsp salt
184 g unsalted butter, softened (13 tbs)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a medium bowl lightly combine the milk, eggs and vanilla.

In a large mixing bowl combine the dry ingredients and mix on low speed for 30 seconds to blend. Add the butter and half the egg mixture. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. Increase to medium speed (high speed if using a hand mixer) and beat for 1 minute to aerate and develop the cake’s structure.

Scrape down the sides. Gradually add the remaining egg mixture in 2 batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition to incorporate the ingredients and strengthen the structure. Scrape down the sides.

Grease 8-inch by 4-inch by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan, line bottom with parchment paper and grease again, and flour (or use Baker’s Joy).

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface with a spatula. The batter will be almost a ½-inch from the top of a 4-cup loaf pan. (If pan is smaller, use excess batter for cupcakes.)

Bake 55 to 65 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cover loosely with buttered foil after 30 minutes to prevent overbrowning. The cake should start to shrink from the sides of the pan only after removal from the oven.

Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes and invert it onto a greased wire rack. Reinvert so that the top is up and cool completely before cutting.