Passover apple nut cake

April 12, 2009 at 9:41 am (B_minus (2.5 stars), Cake, Dessert, From a friend, Jewish)

A friend made this Passover apple nut cake many years ago, and I remember it being huge and fluffy and delicious.  I asked her for the recipe, but never got around to making it.  Finally, almost ten years later, I came across the recipe scribbled on a piece of paper, and decided to give it a try for Passover.

Beat together in a large bowl:

• 6 eggs
• 2 cups sugar

Then beat in:

• 1 cup peanut oil
• 1 rind of lemon

Stir together and add to egg mixture, blending well:

• 2 cups matzoh cake meal
• 2 tsp. potato starch

Pour half the batter into a greased 9×13 pan. Mix and spread over batter:

• 5 McIntosh apples, peeled, cored, sliced
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• juice of 1 lemon

Pour on the other half of the batter, and sprinkle over the top

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour 15 minutes.

Changes:  I can’t get matzoh cake meal in Germany so I put some regular matzoh meal through my mini-processor.  I also can’t find McIntosh apples, so I used a variety of different apples.  Finally, I remember that when my friend made the cake it was tall and fluffy, so rather than making it in a 9×13 pan I used a (greased) 8 cup bundt pan, and poured the extra batter into my cast iron skillet.

The cake broke into two pieces when I tried to get it out of the bundt pan–I guess I should have buttered it and floured it.  But other than that, it tasted pretty good.  I liked the texture a lot–the matzoh meal gives it a different texture than a normal cake, but I quite enjoyed the coarser crumb.  The cake was nice and apple-y, but overly sweet.  It has a *lot* of sugar.  I think all the sugar helps replace the missing flour, but next time I would make a few alterations.  I would use butter instead of peanut oil.  I would try reducing the sugar by a quarter or a third, and I would add more nuts.  The nuts were the best part, but they were few and far between.

Rating: B