KDHamptons reader, and self-described “dessertarian” Robert Baier, shares a simple recipe below for German Apple Cake that can be executed with ease. For more great recipes, be sure to follow Robert’s baking blog and on Instagram at: The Robbylicious Robert shares, “To be honest, I don’t know if there is anything that can compare to German Apple Cake. I bet every mother has her own secret recipe for the best apple cake in the world. When I look back I think this recipe [with some added twists in the last years] was one of the first cakes I ever made, under the beloved guidance of my mother. And she had it from her mother. So this is our – I call it – family-recipe for an apple cake.”

Ingredients:

For the filling:

1 kg apples  deseeded and peeled
100 gr. sugar
2 Tsp. Cinnamon
200 gr. marzipan

For the batter:

500 gr. flour
1 sachet baking powder (2 ½ Tsp.)
200 gr. butter (room temperature)
200 gr. sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar (2 Tsp.)
250 gr. milk
1 vanilla pod

* Small amount of butter and breadcrumbs for the spring form pan
* Spring form pan (10“ diameter)
* Pre-heated oven at 180°C/360°F air circulating

Directions:

The first thing I do is lay the marzipan into the freezer compartment. Doing this I can chop it later a bit easier into small pieces. It can be there for 1 ½ or 2 hours.

Grease the pan with butter and cover it with breadcrumbs. Put it in the fridge.

Make a mixture from the 100 gr. sugar and the 2 Tsp. cinnamon. You need this later for the chopped apples.

Split the vanilla pod and take the pulp out with the back of your knife. Put the milk into a little pan and add the pulp together with the divided vanilla pod. Let the milk come to the boil and take aside for cool down. At that moment you have the marzipan in the freeze, the pan in the fridge and the vanilla-milk aside for cool down.

Now you take care of the filling:

Quarter the apples, take out the core, peel and chop into small slices. Doing this you add bit by bit a small amount of the sugar-cinnamon-mixture. In the end, fold the filling so all apples are covered with the mixture.

You can now take out the marzipan and chop into small pieces. Fold the pieces into the apple-cinnamon-mixture and spread them well. Take care that there are no marzipan lumps. Put the filling aside.

The batter:

Take the soft butter, the eggs and the sugar with the vanilla sugar into a bowl. Make a homogenous mixture with your electric mixer. Then, bit by bit, add in alternating (I do it in four rounds) the flour and the vanilla-milk. The batter should be shiny and smooth – not too fluid. At that point you can correct the consistence of the batter by adding flour or milk.

Before you add the apples into the batter, blend the apple-marzipan-mixture again. It should have emerged a small amount of syrup – that is fine. Now add the apples into the batter and blend well. Fill all into your cold spring form pan and put it in the oven.

Bake it in your pre-heated oven at 180°C/360°F. The baking time depends pretty much on your oven, the consistence of the apples and how much syrup emerged. The approximate baking time is 90 minutes.

After 60 minutes I cover the cake with tinfoil. Doing this the cakes doesn’t get too dark or at least burn. At this point I control for the first time the batter with a wooden pic. Just to see how it develops. I do this again after 80, 90 and if needed 100 minutes. When there is no fluid batter on your stick the cake is baked. Especially the center of the cake should be well baked.

Let it cool down. To be honest, I can’t wait a long time until I must have the first slice of that cake. It is best served a little warm together with vanilla ice and whipped cream.

I hope you all have fun baking this traditional German apple cake.