Impress guests with this incredibly easy, but fancy looking dessert that makes use of whatever you likely have in your cupboard, along with a few stray apples. I love how this bakes up into a moist, not too sweet cake underneath, topped with tender fruit and a brown sugar glaze. Feel free to use pears, peaches, plums, or even berries [1] instead of the apples. It's definitely best served the day it's made, topped with whipping cream [2] or ice cream.
Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp soft, non hydrogenated margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/3 cup skim (or I use 1-2%) milk
4 golden delicious apples (peeled, cored, sliced thinly)
Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp flour
2 tsp soft, non hydrogenated margarine
2/3 cup water
Preheat oven to 350F.
Stir the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl, whisk together the margarine, sugar, egg, vanilla, and applesauce. Add 1/2 of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, whisking until just combined. Add 1/2 of the milk, whisking. Repeat, adding the rest of the flour mixture and then the milk.
Butter an 8 inch spring form pan and spread the batter in the bottom. Top with sliced apples, arranging in a circular pattern from the center out to the edges. Don’t worry if it doesn’t look perfect, it’s not supposed to!
Combine all the topping ingredients in a small pot and bring to a boil, stirring until it thickens up a bit. Pour evenly over the apples and batter.
Bake cake for about 40-50 minutes, or until the apples are cooked and a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool, and just before serving dust with icing sugar.
Makes 8 servings
Adapted from Becel [3]