Yvette’s Irish apple cake

Yvette van Boven certainly understands comfort food. In her latest book, Home Sweet Home, she returns to her Irish roots. That’s why this apple cake includes a splash of whiskey.

There are just as many recipes for Irish apple cake (note: cake, not pie) as there are recipes for spaghetti bolognese. The Irish call it cake because the dough is rather like scone dough. So it is light and crumbly. Depending on the season and the harvest, you can supplement the apples with blackberries, rhubarb or whatever you fancy. This is my version, with whiskey in it, okay? It’s delicious.

Method
Mix the apples with the ground cloves, nutmeg and whiskey and leave to stand for a while. Mix two to three tablespoons of sugar into the apple mixture, depending on their acidity; sometimes no sugar is needed.  Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt into a bowl. Rub in the butter with clean, cool fingers until it looks like coarse crumbs.

Mix in about ninety grams of sugar and make a well in the centre for the beaten eggs. Pour them in, but reserve about a tablespoon for later. Quickly knead everything into a smooth, soft dough and divide it into two portions.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Grease a 22 cm-diameter metal or enamel pie dish (not porcelain or glass, as that does not work well for this dough because it heats too slowly).  Press one half of the dough evenly over the bottom of the dish. Fill generously with the apple mixture and carefully roll out the second half of the dough on a lightly floured work surface. This is soft dough, but forgiving. If it breaks, simply stick it back together.

Place the rolled-out sheet of dough on the filling and press the edges together. Make four incisions in the lid and brush the entire top with the remaining beaten egg, mixed with a little milk, cream or water.  Bake the cake in the oven for forty minutes, until beautifully golden brown and cooked through. Serve with custard or whipped cream.

Home Sweet Home
Yvette van Boven
Photography: Oof Verschuren
€29.99
Fontaine Publishers