OF ALMOND APPLE CAKES & DRAGON TALES

"Life for me has been exactly what I thought it would be, a cake, which I have eaten and had too."

Margaret Anderson

Have you been to Dragon's Kitchen? If you have, then I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, & if you haven't, then I suggest you get to her exciting place as soon as you can. My first visit was inspiring, then I was addicted, & now her kitchen is on my list of daily doses. Beautiful flavours, simple recipes, pretty pictures.

I have bookmarked on almost every visit there, but this particular visit was special. Special because I had never seen a cake as gorgeous as this in ages, one that Dragon says she's made a 100 times. Special because it's a no-frosting cake...my fave type. Special also because that day she had made it again for her Mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Dragon's Mom I murmured as I fell asleep, dreaming of the first thing to make the next day. To get to a 100, one has to make a beginning, & I did the next morning.

The almond-apple cake is as beautiful as can be. A cake sans frosting as I like it. Like a coffee cake like moist crumb, almost a Danish pastry, & flavours announcing warmly the arrival of fall. Just the perfect answer to my questions while graduating from stone fruit to pip fruit. For the past month the mind had been strangely stressed, ever since mangoes disappeared. What shall I do now? WOOHOO, this one cake has invigorated the passion in me, & I have so much to make this fall. The only things I'm running out of is time & ways to burn calories...hhhmmmmmmmmmm...very weighty issue that!!

Try this cake & it will sing to you. All of us loved it. The son eagerly volunteered to finish the whole cake if I liked; he loved it. I grabbed the remaining half of my precious cake & vanished into thin air.

It was lovely served warm...light, moist, tender & bursting with flavour. Surprisingly, it was delicious, eaten cold, the next day as well. Perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. Thank you Dragon lady...I LOVE your kitchen!! I still have the picture of nuts & rosemary in my mind.

I made a few changes. I had 1/2 a cup of butter I wanted to use up. So I increased the butter from 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup, decreased the yogurt to 1/4 cup, added 1/2 a cup of almonds (with skins) that I ran in the coffee grinder with some flour mixture. Also increased the cinnamon in the topping as we love the flavour. Fabulous in every way, & ever so pretty!!

This is off to Ruth's 'Bookmarked event'. It's an event where anyone from anywhere can blog about a recipe they had bookmarked from a cook book, food magazine, food blog, food website, from TV etc, make it and submit it to a weekly roundup. I am happy to be hosting the event this week on Ruth's behalf since she's away. Please send in any entry's to bookmarkedrecipes[AT]gmail[DOT]com by the 20th & I will post the round-up on Monday. Next week's host is the lovely Ning from Heart and Hearth. For the rules, please check Ruth's blog here.

APPLE ALMOND CAKE as adapted from Dragon's Kitchen
Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cups
Whole almonds - 1/2 cup (ground in coffee grinder with a 1 tbsp of flour mixture)
Granulated sugar - 3/4 cup
Baking powder - 1 1/2 teaspoon
Baking soda - 1/2 teaspoon
Salt - 1/4 teaspoon
Eggs - 2
Plain yogurt - 1/4 cup
Butter - 1/2 cup / melted
Almond extract - 1 teaspoon
Apples - 3 / peeled and thinly sliced
Almonds - 1/4 cup , sliced
Granulated sugar - 3 tablespoons
Cinnamon - 1 teaspoon

Method:

• Preheat your oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 9 inch spring form pan.
• In a bowl, stir together flour, almond flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
• In a separate bowl, beat eggs. Stir into the eggs, yogurt, butter and almond extract.
• Stir wet ingredients into the flour mixture just until combined.
• Pour batter into prepared pan. Arrange apples over the batter.
• For the topping: Combine almonds, sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle the topping over apples.
• Bake for 1 hour 20 minutes or until cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Drizzle melted white chocolate over the top once cooled a bit.

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