Italian apple cake recipe

Torta di mele
A really gorgeous Italian apple cake recipe made special by the use of butter fried apples. Still, the cake can be prepared with a minimum of effort.

This time of year I am dying for other fresh fruit than oranges, and fruity cakes make a worthy substitute for the real thing. You can almost make believe they are healthy.

This apple cake has a special forbidden buttery feel like a cross over between tarte tatin and apple pie, because the apples are fried, before they are mixed with the dough and baked, but the amount of butter used equals what you would find in any recipe for a tart or a pie, and this version is much easier and quicker to make, because you don’t have to bother with rolling out the dough.

Ingredients
4 peeled, cored and thinly sliced apples
125 g butter
200 g flour
200 g sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla sugar
Grated skin of ½ lemon
2 eggs
Confectioners sugar

Preparation
Melt the butter over low heat
Mix flour, vanilla and baking powder with sugar and grated lemon peel in a mixing bowl and stir in 3/4s of the melted butter.
Add the eggs using an electric mixer
Fry the sliced apples in the remaining butter for 10 minutes until they are soft and almost translucent.
Fold the apples into the dought and arrange the mixture in a tall, greased oven-proof cake pan.
Bake the cake in a preheated oven (200°C/375°F) for 30-35 minutes until golden brown.
Allow the Italian apple cake to cool before dusting with confectioners sugar.

Other Italian apple cake recipes:

Traditional apple pie

Apple tiramisu

Apple flan from Piedmont