Scrumptious Spelt Apple Cake with Apricot Jam Glaze

I'd like to thank Jeffrey Nakamura for always finding some time to give me advice on how to take pictures etc. My pictures will never be as nice as yours...but I'm trying...:)

Each single time some friends had to drop by for a coffee, and each single time we were invited somewhere for either a lunch, coffee, or dinner, my brain started working full speed in order to figure out what to prepare and offer to my guests or bring to our friends' place, that everyone would have enjoyed. After racking my brain for many years, and after offering many different kinds of cakes and desserts, I got to the conclusion that if there's one thing almost everyone likes is any kind of dessert/cake made with apples. The recipe I'm sharing today is the one I make the most – along with the French Apple Pie – and each time I served it, it didn't take long for my guests to leave their plates empty and ask for more. :)

As in many of my other recipes, I use ingredients like spelt flour, brown sugar, and goat milk, but you feel free to use “normal” ingredients – as a friend of mine calls them – and you are sure that the result will be as good as mine.

If you don't have any particular intolerance or allergy, you can use the following ingredients in the same amount suggested in the recipe:

All-purpose flour instead of spelt flour;

Refined sugar instead of brown sugar;

Cow milk or any kind of milk ˗ water works, too ˗ instead of goat milk.

INGREDIENTS:

200 g (1 ½ cup) spelt flour (or all-purpose flour)

½ tsp (3 g) baking soda (or 2 teaspoons baking powder)

80 g (1/3 cup) low-fat butter with 50% raps oil

100 g (½ cup) brown sugar

½ tsp pure vanilla powder (or pure vanilla extract)

½ tsp natural pure lemon flavor

A pinch of salt

3 eggs

1 or 2 Tbsp goat milk (or cow milk)

3 apples, peeled and quartered

For the glaze:

2 Tbsp apricot jam

1 Tbsp water

DIRECTIONS:

Preheated oven: 180ºC/350ºF

Baking time: about 45 Minutes

In a medium bowl, mix the butter and the sugar with an electric mixer until well mixed and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing at least 1 minute each time you add an egg. Then, stir in the vanilla powder, the lemon extract, and a pinch of salt, and keep on mixing for another minute.

Combine the flour with the baking soda and fold half of this mixture into the wet ingredients. Mix gently and then add the remaining flour combined with the baking soda. Pour the milk into the batter and mix well for 2 or 3 minutes.

Butter and flour a round cake springform pan – mine is Ø 24 cm (about 10”), but also a bigger one will work just as fine – and pour the dough into it.

Wash, peel, and quarter the apples. Cut slits lengthwise in the external side of the apple quarters, but don't cut all the way through. Place the apple quarters with the sliced side up on the batter following the round shape of the cake pan and in the middle, too.

Place the cake pan in the preheated oven and bake about 45 minutes and remove it from the oven when a toothpick comes out clean. Then, in a small saucepan, mix the apricot jam and water over medium heat. Stir constantly until the jam and water form a nice syrup. Remove from heat and brush the top of the cake with the syrup.