Apple Walnut Cake

I’ve spent a lot of time lately filtering my complaints about life through the lens of so-called ‘first-world problems.’ You know? A first-world problem, for those of you who aren’t up on the trend, is a problem that would only occur to someone living in the affluence and comfort of first-world countries.

 

For example, spilling wet coffee grounds all over the floor and the kitchen and into the open dishwasher is a problem, until you put it into the perspective of ‘I have a floor…and a roof…and coffee…and a dishwasher.’

And an owl mug, by the way. How bad can life be?

I’m also dipping my toes into the local blogging community and have been stricken by shyness like never before, and that’s a first-world problem if I’ve ever heard of one. After all, I sit around worrying if my tweets are dumb while eating goldfish crackers, as opposed to…oh, I don’t know. Bearing eight million children. Engaging in back-breaking labor. Living in a world where there are no goldfish crackers. 

Truth be told, most of my ‘problems’ are pretty dumb.

Besides. Peeling and chopping three pounds of apples gives a girl a lot of time to ponder and sip coffee and decide that things are probably going to be okay.

This cake is adapted from my thea* Chrysanthi’s recipe, and represents my first foray into blogging my maternal family’s wealth of food history. Most of it is Greek food with names that have too many vowels and therefore sound more complicated than they are, but this apple cake is as simple and straightforward as it gets.

I’ve followed Thea Chrysanthi’s recipe exactly in the past, and it makes a fantastic moist, tart-sweet cake that does double duty as breakfast or dessert. This time, though, I altered the recipe a little to include walnuts, wheat flour and less oil, and the adapted recipe is what I’m sharing with you. 

The lovely blushing apples pictured above are the Pink Lady variety, which are my favorite both for eating and for cooking. Most apples will suit this recipe fine, but avoid Granny Smith or Red Delicious, which don’t fare well in this application.  

Baking is great for beating out grouchy, sad, and disillusioned…but most of all, it’s best for conquering hungry. Check after the jump for the recipe!

Church Lady Peach Pie

My pie timeline is totally off. 

Since it’s November, I should be telling you about pies made with pecans or sweet potatoes or pumpkins, and hey, all those things have fantastic pie-making potential. But the snowier it gets outside, let me tell you, the more we all miss the fresh fruit pies of summer. 

Luckily, I have a secret.

This fantastic, gorgeous, glorious peach pie is not a fresh fruit pie. It’s a jarred fruit pie. 

Okay, look, I know. I know that our food culture has placed supreme importance on using fresh, seasonal and local produce, and that’s definitely a good philosophy to preach. But if it’s November, and you can’t get the thought of juicy ripe peaches out of your head? Please don’t go to the grocery store and buy those baseballs they’re trying to pass off as fruit. All you need is a jar of sliced peaches packed in light syrup and you are well on your way to fruit pie bliss. 

True to the title, I found this recipe buried in an old church charity collection of recipes that I picked up at a thrift store a while back, and maybe that’s why it’s so shameless in using jarred (or canned) peaches. But just ask a grandma – canning is a way to preserve fruit at the height of its ripeness, and that’s why a lot of our grandmas did it themselves.   

So I made up some sweet, golden peach pie filling (which, trust me, you will have to fight to not just eat warm over ice cream. . . or maybe just with a spoon) and then used it to fill some pate brisee (which is just a fancy French way of saying ‘pie crust made with butter’) and baked it until it was flaky and fantastic. 

It’s not quite the same as biting into a ripe peach and letting the juice run down your chin… But you know what? It may just be the next best thing. 

Go on, put your prejudice against canned fruit aside and check out the recipe after the jump for a taste of summer that’ll brighten any snowy day.

Miniature Pear Upside-Down Cakes

Okay. Elephant in the room. I abandoned you for a whole month. There. I said it. It’s out. 

If I said I was sorry, would you believe me? That things just kept coming up, and it totally wasn’t you, it was all me, me and my desire to read cookbooks and to watch cooking shows but not to actually cook. Which is a problem, for a cooking blog. 

But look, I’m back now, and I’m ready to go. Okay? Forgive me? 

If it helps, I brought cake.

Not just any cake, either. I brought a delicious, caramel-y, fruity layer of golden goodness over top some of the most silky, supple vanilla cake I have ever had. Pear Upside-Down Cake, with warm caramel still running down the sides. 

And I didn’t bring you one cake. I brought you four. Miniatures, yes.  But you get one all to yourself. 

And you know what else? I get one all to myself, too! And that’s exciting for all of us, because that means when I blow out my birthday candle, you don’t only have to worry about me spraying saliva all over your serving. That would be pretty rude of me. 

I turned older this past weekend, and while this wasn’t my proper birthday cake, it was the cake I baked on my birthday. It seemed like the right thing to do.  I couldn’t be happier than to be simmering thick slices of ripe pears in caramel and folding whipped egg whites into a delicate batter, so that’s what I did. I’m pretty sure it’d make you happy, too.

This past weekend, we also lay to rest the ashes of Sparky’s grandfather, who succumbed to his battle with cancer last November. In the weeks leading up to his passing, the family was fortunate enough to be able to come together one last time for a meal with him. This was the cake I made for dessert. 

I don’t mean to get all heavy on you. Maybe I’m just getting a little more circumspect in my old age, but it seemed fitting to bake this cake to again celebrate life. My life, this time – another year past, and a new one to come.  Here’s to the wild ride. 

And here’s to you. Go make this cake. Celebrate something, or someone, or someplace. Share it with friends. Make memories. 

Check after the jump for the recipe, and an adaptation to produce one 10 ½ inch cake, rather than four miniatures - and check out the new poll in the sidebar to give me your opinion on cake vs pie!