It’s a bit past apple season (usually fall/autumn), but 16-29: Heavenly Apple Cake uses applesauce instead of fresh fruit, so you can make it anytime you’ve got a hankering for apples. Or cake. Cake is always good.
They (Simply Delicious) are trying REALLY hard to make you believe there are actual apple pieces in this cake. I mean, the picture and the description would lead you to think that this thing is just chock full of fresh apples.
I hate to break it to you, but this is gonna be one heck of a bamboozle.
It’s VERY odd that the description clearly mentions slices of apples, but the recipe doesn’t actually include any. I’ve read and reread this recipe at least 20 times–I haven’t missed them, have I?
Ingredients. Since applesauce is the main ingredient here, I bought a fancy-looking local one.
Creaming the butter and sugar in the stand mixer.
Adding in the flour.
Looks like dough to me.
I wrapped it up in plastic wrap and stuck it in the fridge to chill.
Sous-chef assisting by grating the lemon peel for me.
Greased and floured my springform tart pan, and put the whole thing on a sheet pan with a Silpat to minimize sliding. This also makes it MUCH easier to get it in and out of the oven.
Used my tart tamper to…tamp the dough down into the tart pan. It’s a single-use tool, but it’s very useful when needed.
After tamping, with edges trimmed/fluted/cleaned up. Starting the layers off with the breadcrumbs.
NOTE: I did NOT follow the TIP from above about using cornstarch with the store-bought applesauce, but I’ll let you know that it turned out fine anyway. I’m not sure if it’s because of the applesauce I used, but it’s something to consider.
Here’s the applesauce mixed with the suggested lemon peel and cornstarch. I’ll add the (nonpictured) almond paste/butter topping to this.
After baking. The top actually ended up a bit crunchy, which is a nice texture variation to the applesauce filling.
After removing it from the pan. It did end up baking up well.
There’s that applesauce inside like I told you.
I love when cakes slice nice and clean like that. For a similar experience, try 16-47: Orange-Almond Pie.
Final slice picture for you. It was actually very good–I don’t know if I would go so far as to call it “heavenly”, but definitely worth the price of admission (hey, that was some fancy applesauce).
Grade: A
