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Dutch Apple Cake
1 cup scalded milk 1/3 cup butter 1/3 cup sugar 1/3 teaspoon salt 1 yeast cake 2 eggs 2 3/4 cups flour Melted butter 5 sour apples 1/4 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 2 tablespoons currants Mix first four ingredients. When lukewarm add yeast cake, eggs unbeaten, and flour to make a soft dough. Cover, let rise, beat thoroughly, and again let rise. Spread in a buttered dripping-pan as thinly as possible and brush over with melted butter. Pare, cut in eights, and remove cores from apples. Press sharp edges of apples into the dough in parallel rows lengthwise of pan. Sprinkle with sugar mixed with cinnamon and sprinkle with currants. Cover, let rise, and bake in a moderate oven thirty minutes. Cut in squares and serve hot or cold with whipped cream sweetened and flavored.
A yeast-raised sheet cake rather than a baking-powder one, so the whole thing turns on the three rises. Plan on about three hours from start to oven.
- Yeast cakeA cake of compressed fresh yeast; the familiar modern block is 0.6 oz, though period cakes varied in size. Substitute one packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) of active dry or instant yeast, sprinkled into the lukewarm milk mixture.
- Moderate ovenAbout 350 to 375F. Thirty minutes is right for a thin sheet; the dough should be set and golden at the edges and the apples tender.
- Dripping-panA shallow rimmed baking sheet, roughly 10 by 15 inches. The dough is meant to be stretched thin, no more than about a quarter inch, so the apples stand well above it.
- Sour applesFirm tart cooking apples: Granny Smith, Bramley, or a good Northern Spy. Softer sweet eating apples are more likely to go mushy over half an hour.
- Scalded milkScalding is usually explained as denaturing proteins in raw milk that would otherwise weaken gluten, and it also served to heat-treat unpasteurised milk. With shop-bought pasteurised milk simply warm it, and be sure it is no hotter than about 110F before the yeast goes in.
- CurrantsDried Zante currants, not fresh redcurrants. Two tablespoons is a light scattering; soak them briefly in warm water if they are very dry, or they scorch on top.
- The salt measureThe original 1/3 teaspoon sits alongside the other third measures in the list. A scant half teaspoon suits the quantity of flour if you prefer a round number.
- Pressing in the applesSet each wedge on its thin edge and push it down until it nearly touches the pan. Wedges laid flat steam rather than roast and the cake stays damp beneath them.
- YieldCut into squares, about twelve servings. Best the day it is baked; the sweetened whipped cream is not optional in the original's view, and it does compensate for a cake that stales quickly.