Sant’Orfeo Apple Cake
Torta di mele di Sant’Orfeo
Sant’Orfeo apple cake is listed as an Umbrian speciality, but apart from that – and the phenomenal taste – I know next to nothing about the recipe.
When apples are in season there is nothing better than a piece of Sant’Orfeo apple cake. Five apples, a pear and an awful lot of raisins make the cake moist and fruity with a discreet batter not unlike clafoutis.
I haven’t been able to dig out the story of Sant’ Orfeo and apples in Umbria, but I hope somebody will enlighten me eventually. Until then I’m happy to enjoy this delicious reminder of other gorgeous apple treats like the apple and date cake and Italian apple cake.
Ingredients
5 apples
1 pear
150 g raisins
150 g butter
120 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
100 g sugar
3 eggs
50 g powdered sugar
Preparation
Soak the raisins in boiling water.
Mix eggs and sugar with an electric mixer until white and fluffy
Stir flour, baking powder, cinnamon and melted butter into the egg mixture.
Peel apples and pear, remove the core and cut the fruit in bite-sized dices.
Drain the raisins
Fold the apples, pear and raisins into the batter.
Grease a 24 cm cake form with butter and pour the mixture into the form.
Bake Saint’ Orfeo Apple Cake in a hot oven at 170 C / 340 F for about an hour.
Dust the cake with powdered sugar before serving.
Sant’Orfeo apple cake is a kind of dessert with more fruit than batter.
As this is quite a straightforward recipe I wasn’t expecting anything special – I was wrong! This cake is delicious; even my wife loves it and she normally steers clear of anything with raisins in it. Very light, very moist and very tasty. I reduced the sugar slightly (90g) and used some small apples that I had from the garden which probably didn’t equate to five normal sized apples but I found it was the perfect balance of apples, pear, raisins and batter. It is nothing like a clafoutis, thankfully!
Thank you so much for posting this recipe.
So glad you liked the Sant’Orfeo apple cake, and you are right to regulate the ingredients, as you see fit. Most Italian recipes are passed along verbally, so the measures aren’t exactly exact – I know mine aren’t. In addition, such things as ingredient temperature, juice and sugar content vary, so you would need a laboratory to make a precise replica.
Looks delicious! Do you cook this in a springform pan?
Yes, I do :)