I don’t have an Aunt Lillian. My one and only aunt is called Ava . She sings, plays piano and tap dances but she doesn’t bake apple cakes.I love her anyway and I’m sure she’d love Aunt Lillian’s cake even as neither Aunt Ava or I have a clue as to who Aunt Lillian is .Well she’s someone’s Aunt and a wonderful baker to boot
Light and fluffy and pleasantly sweet, Aunt Lillian’s is the best apple cake I ever tasted. Though I havent done a scientific survey, I would venture to say that it’s the best apple cake on the planet, maybe the universe too.
It comes from my new favorite cookbook, “Inside the Jewish Bakery,” by Stanley Ginsberg and Norman Berg.
Themselves professional bakers, their book is part recipe collection part social history part memoir filled with easy instructions and full page glossy pictures. If you want to find out how to bake a bialy or an onion pletzl this is the book for you! No, I didn’t get a fat check or a free copy for saying this. I discovered the book somewhere in cyberspace, and I paid good money for it but it’s worth every nickel! And I’m not usually that hot on cookbooks.
Here’s the recipe Aunt Lillian’s Apple Cake
4 medium tart cooking apples peeled and cut into cubes (I used granny smiths and they were fine)
11/2 T sugar
2 t cinnamon
3 cups of flour (I used 70 per cent whole wheat)
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
4 large eggs
1 cup oil
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup orange juice.
1 t vanilla extract (I didn’t have any when I made the cake. It still came out fine)
Preheat oven to 350 F or 175C
Mix apple pieces with sugar and cinnamon and set aside to macerate (that’s a fancy word that means to soak up the sugar)
Sift dry ingredients together
Using an electric beater (don’t do this by hand or it won’t be fluffy enough) beat eggs until thick and light yellow. Add oil and sugar and blend thoroughly.
Add flour mixture one cup at a time alternating with the OJ blending throroughly between additions.
Pour 1/3 batter into your pan (I used a bundt pan sprayed generously with Pam) and then arrange 1/3 of the apple pieces. Repeat until finished
Bake for 50-60 minutes in a rectangular pan or 60-70 minutes in a tube pan. A tester will come out moist because of the apples.
Yum.
Thanks, this is one I will definitely try!
Will try this one, but what’s a bundt pan and how is it different from a rectangular pan, and also a tube pan? I may use my grandmother’s pan which is round and wavy and has a “pole”-an open tube sticking up in the middle-but that’s what she used-is that OK?
Again, I can’t remember what my Grandmother called the pan, but I know it meant “stove pipe”. Do you know the Yiddish word for stove pipe?
sounds like your grandma had a tube pan and that is perfect for this cake. Glad to see you.
So sorry-but I was wrong-it was a chimney (spelling?) and now, what’s the Yiddish for “chimney”? Ask your Aunt Lillian-I never had an aunt with an English name!
i’m enjoying your blog so much! your mention of onion pletzl prompted me to look for the book and in looking, i found the authors’ website http://www.insidethejewishbakery.com/ which, under the heading “errata”, gives a list of corrections for several recipes. thought someone might want to know.
I had no idea. Wow. Boy who would have guessed. Thanks.
chimney in yiddish is koimen … and she’s my wife’s Aunt Lillian …
Wow. Tell her she makes a mean apple cake.
I’ll do that and thanks so much for that beautiful Tablet article. Knowing I’ve helped to change a life for the better makes our book an act of tikkun olam. That is a priceless reward.
Thank you for the Yiddish word for chimney. My grandmother (born -+ 1868) called the dish she baked in a “kamen” as she pronounced it-that i remember. I also remember when I got to Louisiana during World War 2, I shopped for a “chimney” baking pan-and they thought I was crazy!