Short and Tweet 7: Rye apple cake
This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was the hale and hearty sounding Rye apple cake, pg 136 (above photo is from Zeb Bakes). I specifically selected it because Dan Lepard mentions that it’s an “ideal introduction” for anyone who hasn’t used rye-flour in cake making. It’s eye-opening to work with a flour that produces a different gluten network than wheat and doesn’t behave the same way when baking.
New to #shortandtweet, Nicola of North_19 has illustrated the bake of this cake: Rye apple cake, a Twitter Challenge. Nicola was pleased with the cake right up until the vital taste test. Although it improved a little on standing, it seems that this cake wasn’t the tasty experience that one would wish. We’ve discussed possible issues on Twitter but, as some of you know, my palate can be very poor at times so I’m reliant upon other people’s opinion as to how something tastes. My only note for next time is that I typically give these cakes away to elderly neighbours (whose palates are more likely to be dulled) then I might experiment with adding some almond extract to the batter if I have concerns about the tastiness of the apple.
Also new to the challenge is Mitchdafish. So, a warm welcome and murmurs of delight please for this cake.
Several bakers, including Choclette8, were a tad apprehensive that the apple would sink during this bake. I rather blithely trusted that the apple pieces wouldn’t sink as long as they were well coated with the cinnamon (as directed in the recipe). However, further reading indicates that fruit can sink if the batter isn’t sturdy enough to support it and that this might be more likely to happen in a batter such as this which has a weaker gluten network than for wheat flour. Nonetheless, Choclette8 reported back to say that the apple hadn’t sunk (nor did anyone else’s as far as I can tell).
Louise McLaren of Please Do Not Feed the Animals! followed up her last week paean of praise to fibre by highlighting the wholesome nature of this week’s delightful bake: Just what the doctor ordered. “[The Rye apple cake] was very decadent and didn’t at all taste like something you would expect to be good and wholesome! I even treated myself to two large slices for breakfast this morning. And how smug do you think I feel when I give my boys a lovely slice of delicious cake and laugh up my sleeve at how much fibre there is in it?”
While we’re emphasing the (relatively) wholesome nature of this cake I was utterly charmed to learn that Chuchibum baked and served this cake at a Champagne Afternoon Tea (other photos in the series show the very pretty table of baked goods). Chuchibum mentioned that her cake broke in half. After some Twitter discussion with Nicola of @North_19, the best explanation seems to be that (as above) rye batters are more likely to be comparatively weak and break. Nicola helpfully quoted Elizabeth David: “Rye meal dough cracks and spreads” and is “unstable when used on its own…although rye has a good gluten content it is gluten of a different and inferior nature to wheat” [English Bread & Yeast Cookery].
As ever, Misky on Misk Cooks has posted an interesting and well-illustrated account of baking this cake: Rye apple cake - Short and Sweet Challenge. Misky wanted to substitute Agave Syrup for the Golden Syrup in the recipes and contacted Groovy Food Company for advice. The substitution is successful and, along the way, I picked up some useful cake-lining tips alongside intriguing uses for apple peelings.
Jo of Zeb Bakes has given us this week’s loveliest post title: The Comfort of a Cake You Know and Love. Jo’s description would persuade many people that they ought to try this recipe: “It is one of our favourite tea time cakes, not too fancy, no icing, just a nice soft apple cake that is easy to put together and easy to eat…I freely admit to having a huge bias in favour of cakes that you put together at least in part in a saucepan. No creaming of sugar and butter, no separating eggs, you just have to watch that you don’t overheat the sugar-butter-syrup bit and you will be fine”. Now, I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m obsessed with my own ineptitude when lining cake tins but, yes, another photograph with another suggestion for lining a tin.
Tony Inga of Pane Artigiano seems to be settling in Panto mode: Oh My!!! Apple and rye! Despite an overflowing tin that only added to the wholesome generosity of this recipe, it was delightful to read that not only was Tony pleased with his “baking alchemy” but: “I can only describe the end result as delicious and the whole cake was demolished by the four of us in a matter of minutes”.
BakeCakeCrumbs of Cake, Crumbs and Cooking baked a successful Rye Apple Cake - Short and Tweet with a substitution for the almonds. Despite replacing the almonds, the report was: “soft, luscious cake, with a lovely crunchy topping to contrast with it. The rye flour definitely adds a nubbly note to the cake”.
Like other bakers, I found that my rye apple cake cracked (as per Elizabeth David). The taste reports were good but (as detailed above) I’m never entirely confident that that the recipients aren’t being more polite than accurate. My baking notes for the future for this cake would be to consider adding almond extract to the batter and to assess the rye flour to decide whether it would be better to sieve it and grind down some of the larger pieces before adding back in. Grinding the flour a little more would reduce the number of rough pieces that might damage the gluten network while rising (and ‘weaken’ the batter). [Update: I’m searching the memory card for my photograph, it may appear later.]
I look forward to this week’s challenge for 18 December: Chorizo and tomato tarts pp 498-9 or Hot crust sausage rolls on pg 505. If the thought of any sort of pastry-making fills you with dread, then the savoury scones on pg 534 look like good options: Garlic butter and Cheddar scones or Walnut and Stilton scones. If you blog about your experience with this recipe, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 18 December.
Schedule for the #shortandtweet December challenge.
Schedule for the #shortandtweet January 2012 challenge.
Outline for #shortandtweet challenge and its conditions.
Thank you to everyone for taking part. I look forward to seeing the various savoury items.
