immersive apple experience: apple-turducken...

[full disclosure: i wrote this roughly two three weeks ago... then we had a week-long plumbing emergency that left me swallowing painkillers in rapid succession to keep my head from exploding. trust me when i say that there are few things in life as joyous as a migraine that lasts multiple days. good times. said crisis was eventually rectified, and i have (almost) finished recovering from the stress of the thing, so this seems like the perfect time to wrap up my talk about our seasonal obsession with apples. oh, and further full disclosure: the lighting in my kitchen is extra-sucky once we run out of daylight, which happens shortly after four in the afternoon at this time of year. if anyone ever suggests that you move to Canada... start running away!]

in our last episode, i turned most of the assortment of apples into a tasty crumble, but the best bit was still to come. what could possibly be tastier than a toasty apple crumble, you ask? apple crumble cake, i respond.

everything is better with cake.

this dessert is the best of both worlds, and it offers a fantastic voyage of appley (appleish?) goodness for all. as the name implies, it is the fusion of a cake (which everybody loves) and a crumble (which is basically a crustless pie... which everybody also loves). basically, this is the apple-turducken the world has been waiting for.

as the name also implies, the setup for this one involved a few more steps than when i made the crumble (see previous post). i reserved half an apple from each variety (plus half a pear) for this one...

and i am using this recipe (with a few tweaks, see below) as my starting point.

the fruit was cut into slightly-smaller pieces this time around, and the remaining ingredients were assembled. [random aside: this is—just possibly—the part of cooking/baking i like best. it is meditative to chop, measure, and arrange all of the necessary bits in preparation for making something wonderful. my brand of OCD delights in this part of things.]

there are multiple parts to this recipe, so i sorted the ingredients accordingly.

1. yogurt (because i had no sour cream on hand)
2. dry ingredients for cake base 
3. fruit with sugar, ginger, lemon juice, and cornstarch
4. butter, sugar, and ginger for cake base
5. dry ingredients for crumble topping

i made the following tweaks:

• added salt to #2 & #5, and a pinch to the fruit in #3
• added a bit of cornstarch to fruit in #3
• added grated fresh ginger and lemon zest to #3 & #4
• added (dry) ground ginger & freshly-grated nutmeg to #2 &#5
• added chopped walnuts to #2 & #5
• sprinkled a handful of dried cranberries over the fruit topping during cake assembly
• used less sugar in each component, because we prefer desserty things slightly-less sweet
• skipped the caramel and icing sugar at the end, for the same reason

each component of this cake needs to be prepped separately before being layered in the baking pan. i first combined the contents of the fruit bowl, then i did the same for the crumble topping.

next, the contents of the butter bowl got creamed together to start the cake batter.

this is when i remembered the eggs which had been left sitting elsewhere on the counter to come to room temperature.

they went into the butter mixture.

this is very simple cake mixture, so fancy mixing equipment is not necessary. a rubber spatula was
my only tool.

the recipe specifies to add the dry cake ingredients in thirds, alternated with the sour cream (yogurt), mixing after each addition. so, first came some flour mixture...

then half the yogurt...

and i continued on in that fashion, ending with the last third of the flour mixture. the batter should be a relatively thick one, as it has to be able to support the fruit and the crumble topping.

with the fruit, batter, and topping mixtures ready to go, finally, i began to assemble the cake.

into a greased springform pan...

went the cake batter, spreading to distribute evenly...

and it was topped with the fruit mixture.

i sprinkled over a handful of cranberries, because i can.

and the whole thing was covered with the crumble mixture.

just in time too, as the crumble from the previous post was ready to come out of the oven at this point.

after a short stay in the oven, the cake was ready to go. imagine my dismay as i stood there in the kitchen trying to decide which appley treat we should try first.

i love a good crumble, but cake always wins!!!

the best bits were along the outer edges where the fruit caramelized a bit. it was a thing of pure joy.

the whole cake disappeared in two days. luckily, it was covered in fruit, so it was practically a health food. makes perfect sense, no?

the end.

it's a lazy afternoon...

it is an intensely lazy, late-Winter afternoon here at la maison gnu. one cat is napping on her hobo beanbag while the other one is staring intently at a patch of green light on the ceiling (it is actually the result of sunlight refracting (through, on, by...???) a half-empty bottle of Perrier, but i will not ruin her enthusiasm by pointing out that fact). then there is my favorite animator, fast asleep on the chesterfield (we are starting a campaign to bring back that term as it is so much more fun to say than couch) and possibly snoring, a suggestion which he will deny vehemently. while i would love to give myself credit for being the sole productive member of the household at present, the fact is that i have not slept since yesterday (for no particular reason), so i am not responsible for anything i may say.

i passed some part of this latest bout of insomnia by (finally) plying the alpaca/wool fiber that has been occupying my jumbo bobbins for far too long. now, instead of three bobbins of singles (crappy photo taken before dawn, hence the bluish glow)...

i have three two-point-five bobbins of yarn (equally crappy photo taken at like three o'the afternoon) ready for knitting... soon as i get around to washing, dyeing, washing again, and drying it all.

i want to go into greater detail about this fiber blend, but that may have to wait till i am slightly more alert. hopefully there will be enough yardage to make something interesting. it may not look like much, but those two jumbo bobbins are packed .

there may also be a recently-completed cardigan hanging out on the clothes horse (that is another term that needs to be used at every available opportunity). the million (or so) loose ends have been woven in (a task that i rank alongside washing a never-ending stack of dirty dishes as my personal vision of hell) and the zipper is installed and ready to go. i gave it a quick soak yesterday and left it to dry in a corner of my incredibly-arid apartment. all that is left now is to get it out of my home and my life.

there is also continued activity on the seedling front.  the peppers and eggplants are proving to be the slowest growers, but everything else is doing well to date.

i especially enjoy the shape on  the young multicultural basils.

there are even signs of life from the parsley (which is notoriously difficult to start from seeds, hence the pre-soaking).

i sowed some courgette (zucchini) seeds earlier this weeks, so hopefully there will be a couple-few of those plants ready to go when (or if) it finally warms up. despite all the prognosticating over the possibility of an early start to Spring, i am still in Canadaland and they do not let go of Winter without a fight. there was fresh snow on the ground this morning to prove that point. now pardon me as i return to staring at a cat as she stares at a wall in what may just possibly be the best afternoon i have had in a long while. until we meet again.

brown paper packages tied up with string... and things...

pardon my dopey grin.  that's just the afterglow of gastronomical delight.  while the combo of cheesecake and a large cup of tea does not exactly scream lunch to most sane folks, it was all for a good cause.  i swear.  

see, what happened was... i bought a can of that cherry pie filling stuff, and i ended up using only a few spoonfuls, so i was forced to bake something to use up the leftovers, and (being in a low-or-no wheat state of mind) it had to be something i could actually enjoy myself... ergo, cheesecake!  i had to cut a wedge to take a photo while there was still decent light coming through the windows, and, seeing that it would be very difficult to slide the wedge back into its original location without making a huge mess, i was left with no choice but to consume it... ergo, cheesecake for lunch!!!  i love that brand of logic... tasty, tasty logic. 

i wish i had some fancy recipe to offer, but i pretty much stick to the Classic Cheesecake formula, adding and subtracting ingredients as suits my mood.  the current offering contains the juice and zest of 2 limes.  i went for more of a shred than a fine grate on the zest because i like the extra burst of liminess that comes from biting into the bits.

on the other end of things, i have come to terms with the fact that i am one of those people who are more fascinated with process than product in their crafting pursuits, so i have to resort to delayed gratification and downright bribery to get projects completed... which brings me to the cardboard boxes that have served as the proverbial carrot-on-a-stick in recent days.  first there was the box that arrived late last week from Fibre Garden. i did open the outer box to double check that everything was accounted for (a few skeins of bulky yarn that was on sale, some colorful silk fibers for future spinning adventures, and a small box nestled below all of that).  i placed the smaller, inner box on the edge of the table, where i had no choice but to stare longingly at it every time i walked by over the next few days and dream of the moment when i'd finally get to break the seal.

but first, i had finish the blanket i was working on for my friend's baby (who will arrive any day now) and get it sent off in the mail before the kid is old enough to drive.  it seemed like a good time to ship off a few other things that have been piling up over the recent weeks.  so there i was on Tuesday, stumbling up to the post office counter carrying a pile of packages as high as my head, the largest and most special of which contained this assortment of goods for the baby-to-be...

with that done, i could finally tear open the box and start playing with my new hand carders...

 

the double-bed of tiny, sharp pins guarantees that i will injure myself at some point in the not-too-distant future, but that's half the fun.

i added a few drops of wood glue before securing the handles and finished it with a layer of furniture wax followed by a pass with some super-super-fine sandpaper, one more layer of furniture wax, and topped it off with a good buffing with a soft rag.  the wood is satiny smooth and i can't wait to see the patina it takes on with continued use.

there i was, feeling mighty pleased with myself.  i pulled out the bag of white and brown alpaca fleece (not pictured) that i've been holding on to for more than two years now, resisting all temptation to start spinning until i could get them properly blended together, and set to work at said task yesterday.  it was going really well... until late in the afternoon when this arrived...

so, now i have to wait until i've finished carding the alpaca (gonna go through the whole lot twice for maximum blendedness) before i'm allowed to open this new package.  i'm pretty sure there's a whole sheep (or something equally awesome) in there, but that will have to wait for some other day.