Apple Cake with Orange and Almond

This is a mash up of Smitten Kitchn’s Invisible Apple Cake, Well Seasoned Studio’s Impossibly Easy French Apple Almond Cake and Pinch of Mint’s 1000 Layer Apple Cake which has orange zest and juice in it. A mandolin is very handy for this but for goodness sake use the hand guard!

Ingredients

• ¾ cup flour
• ⅓ cup almond flour – or finely ground almonds
• ¾ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp  ground nutmeg
• 2 large eggs room temperature
• ¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 1/2 milk or cream
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
• Apples cut into ¼-½ -inch thick slices, about 3½-4 cups– you don’t need to peel them (your call)
• Zest and juice of one orange.
• 2 Tbsp Apricot jam for basting the cake when it’s done

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Prepare 8″ spring form pan with parchment paper (spray with baking spray or butter first). If you wet the parchment and scrunch it up it’s easier to push into the pan.
3. Zest and juice the orange into a bowl big enough to hold and toss the apples.
4. Melt the butter in milk/cream (easiest to do this in the microwave), set it aside to cool.
5. Slice up all your apples and toss them with the orange zest and juice, set aside.
6. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, almond flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
7. In a separate large mixing bowl, whisk 2 large eggs until frothy, sugar, butter and cream mixture and vanilla until thoroughly mixed.
8. Mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients and then fold in the apples. Making sure apples are thoroughly coated with batter.
9. Pour the apples and batter into your prepared cake pan. Smooth the cake into an even layer, then top with the remaining apple slices.
10. Bake 50-55 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. *If the cake begins to brown too quickly, you can cover it with aluminum foil for the last 20 minutes of bake time.
11. Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 20 minutes.
12. Heat up the apricot jam.
13. Transfer the cake to a platter (invert onto a platter).
14. Bast the stop of the cake with the apricot jam and leave to cool completely before trying to slice.