Apple pie, the usual but…
with another procedure

In pastry making, in general, doses and procedures must be followed to the letter or… you risk a big mess! In particular, while maintaining the same quantity of the same ingredients, there are cakes that completely change appearance and consistency, just by changing the order in which they are added to the dough.
But sometimes you get a great result, like in this variation of my usual Apple pie for every day.

Usually, for this cake, I follow the procedure I use for plum cake type cakes, that is, the one in which the air is incorporated by whipping, at the beginning, the butter with the sugar; and only then all the other ingredients follow.

This time I wanted to start as if I were preparing a sponge cake  then whipping the whole eggs together with the sugar while hot.

This is a cake, even in this version, that takes me back many years, to that apple pie that my grandmother used to prepare on the fly and that I was really greedy for: then as now!

It's a recipe that I recreated partly from memory and partly by comparing similar versions.

It is not a complicated cake, as I wrote it is a dessert that is good for every day; here is how to prepare it.

Ingredients:

Preparation:

Butter a cake tin, sprinkle it with flour or breadcrumbs and set it aside, preferably in a cool place to prevent the butter from dripping off!

Preheat the oven, static, to 180 °.

First peel the apples and cut them into slices. Set them aside in a bowl with a little lemon juice and sugar (if you want to add an idea, just an idea, of cinnamon - I like it).

In a separate bowl, weigh the flour and mix it with your favorite flavorings:
I practically always add lemon zest and pure vanilla powder.
Also add the salt and baking powder (it could be omitted if the eggs and sugar have been whipped up properly but… better not to risk it!).
Melt the butter in a saucepan and set it aside.

Now we begin in earnest!

Place half of the sugar in a saucepan and add the whole eggs, breaking them one by one separately.

Add (optional) three drops of lemon juice for each egg: this helps stabilize the mixture and tones down the eggy aftertaste.

Stir with a whisk and, continuing to mix, pass the small pot on the stove to minimum to bring the mixture to a temperature between 40 ° and 45 °; you can use a kitchen thermometer ...

or, much more simply, a finger: when the temperature is slightly warmer than your finger (that of a person with a high fever...) the dough will be ready to be whipped.

WARNING: it is very important not to stop stirring otherwise the egg will start to harden and you may forget to proceed further with the preparation (and this is the reason why many prefer the technique of adding egg whites at the end...).

If you are not completely sure of taking the pan off the heat at the right time, it is better to take a little longer and heat the eggs and sugar in a bain-marie, stirring constantly: the temperature rises much more slowly and it is easier to judge when the ideal temperature has been reached.

Without stopping to mix, pour the mixture into the mixer turned on at the minimum and gradually increase the speed of the whips up to the maximum.

It takes fifteen minutes for the dough to be whipped to perfection: and it takes all of them. So take it easy and while the drums are working, check that you haven't forgotten anything.

At this point, mixing very delicately, add the rest of the sugar and then the milk mixed with the melted butter and then, mixing even more carefully (at this point I move on to kneading with the spatula...) the mixture of flour and flavourings prepared earlier.

Pour everything into a previously buttered and floured cake tin.
Add the apples, letting one half penetrate the mixture (it's very easy, the mixture is very soft) and distribute the others on top, as decoration.
Avoid putting apples in the center of the cake: it makes cutting more complicated.
Bake at 180° for 40'/50' (static oven)

At the end of cooking, however, check that the cake is cooked well (usual method of the steccolino ...).
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and let cool on a wire rack. Slice and eat.

ADVICES AND NOTES:

• Recipe, text only: to print or download.
• If you happen to go ahead do not forget that it is also excellent the next morning, at breakfast!
• Since you have to squeeze the lemons to dress the apples, you can also scratch the rind and add it to the dough, if you want: it works very well.
• After having buttered the pan, you can replace the flour with breadcrumbs: it gives an extra touch to the edge of the cake. And if you are in a hurry ... well-folded baking paper.
  As you can see in the following photos, apples can be simply cut in half and added to the mixture; during cooking they will not sink completely giving a particular aspect to the dessert.
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• As an alternative to powdered sugar to be put at the end of cooking, you can sprinkle the mixture of sugar - even better than raw sugar - before baking.
• Other cakes with apples: Grandma Duck cake -1, Apple pies for all occasions, The apple tart, another!

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