When I am craving something sweet, but not too indulgent, I usually head on over to Heidi Swanson’s site. While living in Texas, I found her out of desperation. I was searching for a great pizza dough to cook in my Wolf oven and she has the best recipe on her site. I was missing San Francisco so much, and I got caught up in her description of a pizza place, and the next thing I knew, I was making pizza dough to stick in the fridge for a few days of mellowing. And once I made pizza from it, it became the only pizza dough recipe I ever use. We know life is really bad around here when we are out of that pizza dough in the freezer. I strongly urge you to make it. Really, really, strongly urge you to make it. You will not be disappointed. And now I am back in the SF area and just missing my Wolf oven!
Where was I? Apple cake. Not-too-sweet. Right. But hold on a minute, because I need to talk about Heidi. I don’t know why, exactly, because I am not a vegetarian, nor do I use whole wheat exclusively, nor do I search for less-processed sweeteners with her passion. But this woman gave me permission to cook. I spent my entire 46 years – yikes! – before I “met” her website a while back, cooking by the recipe. Exactly. All the time. 98% of the time, at least. Boring.
Something about the way she writes and cooks let me know that I was the boss in my own kitchen. If she could throw some tofu and greens from the farmers’ market together with a little soy and ginger and garlic and call it a recipe, then I could try it too! I could take 5 ingredients from my fridge and an idea of a dish from her website, and make my own delicious meal. It wouldn’t be a disaster of national proportions if it didn’t turn out to be so great. I know. I’m such a dolt. Or we could just be nice and call me a very late bloomer. Between Heidi and Deb, I’ve become an entirely new person in the kitchen. It’s a really good thing, and a lot more fun. I still love recipes and always will. But I’m not afraid of throwing a little whole wheat pastry flour in some banana bread, anymore, either. More on that later.
So back to the Apple Cake. Heidi uses a not-so-sweet buttermilk batter for cakes sometimes. I’ve made another version she has on her site, but the apple cake pictured above is here. She always has the cutest pans, all the latest spices, and every single type of salt so-far known to man. But I made it with regular salt, regular brown sugar, regular cinnamon, in an 8-inch regular old pan and it was a big hit at our house. Don’t be afraid of trying it if you keep a simpler pantry. Just don’t expect it to be what it’s not – read the comments on it if you have doubts. It is moist, slightly sweet, nutty-flavored from the whole wheat, and crunchy on top from the large-grain sugar. Next time I’ll add extra cinnamon (given that I don’t have the specialty cinnamon called for), and maybe some ginger and cloves. We’ll see. That’s part of the fun of it! (When we ate it for dessert, we took her suggestion of sweetened boozy whipped cream. Yum!)
