Irish Apple Cake with Custard Sauce

 

Ingredients

For the Cake Batter:

For the Custard:

Instructions

Preheat and Prepare the Pan. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

 

Grease an 8-in or 9-in springform pan with vegetable shortening then use up to 2 Tbl additional flour to dust the bottom and the sides to prevent sticking. Remove excess flour from pan by inverting and tapping it over the kitchen sink. Please consider using vegetable shortening and flour instead of cooking spray which may make the crust too crunchy and difficult to cut neatly.

 

Combine the Dry Ingredients. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, cloves, and nutmeg into a large bowl. Cut in the butter using your fingers or a pastry cutter until the mixture resembles fine crumbs. Add the 3/4 c granulated sugar and mix completely.

 

Peel and Chop the Apples. Peel the apples and slice them into uniform pieces. This cake has very chunky apples in it, so chop each slice into about 4 pieces, about 1/2-in across. Add the four chopped apples to the flour mixture and combine well, pulling apart apples that stick together.

 

Combine the Wet Ingredients. In a separate bowl combine the milk and eggs, whisking well. Add egg mixture to the apple-flour mixture and mix with a large spatula until just combined. It will look as though there isn't enough liquid, but keep mixing. The batter will be very thick and chunky. Get ready to bake.

 

Transfer the apple batter to the prepared springform pan and smooth the surface with your spatula. Sprinkle the remaining 2 Tbl sugar on the top of the cake batter.

 

Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center reveals no uncooked batter and the top of the cake is golden brown. Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

 

Make the Custard. Meanwhile, prepare the custard by placing the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and whisk until pale yellow, about 3 minutes. Heat the milk in a medium saucepan on the stove until nearly boiling, remove from heat. Add the hot milk to the egg mixture a couple of spoonfuls at a time, whisking to incorporate. This slow addition of the hot milk to the eggs will temper the eggs, slowly increasing their temperature to and ensure they don't scramble.

 

Transfer the egg mixture back to the saucepan and whisk over medium heat until the sauce thickens, about 4-5 minutes. Custard will be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

 

Remove from heat and whisk in vanilla. For a nice touch strain the custard sauce through a fine mesh strainer to remove any larger lumps, leaving a very smooth sauce.

 

Transfer sauce to a bowl or serving saucer. The sauce can be served warm or cold over the apple cake slices.

 

Adapted from The Kitchen McCabe