Vermont Apple Pie

I guess it might be illegal to post about Thanksgiving in December. But I still wanted to share these photos with you. Thanksgiving isn't celebrated in Finland, but because I'm an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher, I'm a sucker for this holiday and always try to notice it in my personal life some way or another. (This year I did some Thanksgiving stuff with my pupils too, which was fun and I'll definitely keep the tradition going in the future.)

I took a little shortcut with this Vermont Apple Pie and used a store bought pie crust instead of making my own.  I only decided to make this on the day, after work, and the self-made pie crust would have needed to chill for at least four hours. I just didn't have the time for that, if I wanted to savor this on Thanksgiving Day. Next time when I'm making this, however, I will make my own crust, it's worth it to taste that buttery goodness with the beautiful fall flavors. The store bought was good too, just not as good. This tasty pie lasts for quite a while in our family of two, but it's no problem as I really liked the days when I got home from work, had dinner and said to my hubby: 

- "I think there's still some apple pie left in the fridge, would you like a slice?"

Apple cake knighted with caramel sauce

Photo and the Finnish recipe from here

During the weekend we had those friends visiting, which I mentioned in my H54F post. I am obsessed with offering something self-made for friends, whenever we have them over and this time was no exception. I still had some of those apples left I picked up a week ago and I came across this stunner recipe, so I decided to give it a try.

Oh. My. Word. 

This has to be my favorite apple cake ever. I would not have done anything differently, except make more of it. My friend said that it would also work well on Christmas and I bet it would. Although I don't know a time when this cake would not work. There cannot be such a time. But I'm taking my friend's advice and I will make this cake this Christmas. And probably a lot of other times as well.

Batter

• a scant ½ cup of butter
• a scant ½ cup of sugar (same amount as butter)
• 2 eggs
• ¾ cup flour
• ½ tsp of baking powder
• ½ tsp of cinnamon

Topping

• 1 1/4 cups apple cubes
• 1 cup of créme fraiche
• 2 tsp vanilla-infused sugar (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
• 1 tsp of potato flour
• ½ cup cashew nuts and almonds
• 3 tbs sugar

Grease the springform baking tin ø 7.5-9 inces. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk the room-temperatured butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time and beat all the time. Mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon and add to the dough mixture and stir thoroughly. Spread the dough on the bottom of the pan.

Sprinkle the apple cubes on top. Stir in the cream, vanilla sugar/extract and potato flour and pour the mixture over the apple cubes. Sprinkle the almonds, nuts and sugar on top. Bake in the oven for about 45 minutes on the lower level. Let cool to almost room temperature, remove the ring and slide the cake onto a plate. Pour caramel sauce over the cake just before serving.

I made the caramel sauce myself, but naturally you can also use store-bought. I bet you already have a great caramel sauce recipe yourself, so I'm not going to try to translate mine with awkward, imprecise measurements.