0 Rum Raisin Apple Cake

For the past couple months I've been buying tons of apples from the farmers' market every weekend. I can get varieties that are not available in the supermarket. Arkansas Black, Philo Gold, Wickson, Connell Red, Northern Spy and Spitzenberg just to name a few. Sadly the local apple season is coming to end and I'll have to go back to eating supermarket apples that have been in cold storage for who knows how long before showing up at supermarket for sale.

I recently brought home some red Rome apples from the farmers' market. They were so crisp and juicy. They were labeled as "dry farmed" and I'm not sure if that had anything to do with how delicious they were. Red Rome apples are perfect for this rum raisin apple loaf cake.

This cake is one that I can whip it up in no time at all. It's full of apples and rum soaked raisins. The recipe is from Francois Payard's "Simply Sensational Desserts". I modified it just slightly. The original recipe says to cut the apples in wedges of 2 different sizes and lay them nicely into the cake batter so that when it bakes you'll see the perfect wedges of apples neatly tiled up next to each other. I decided to simplify it by just dicing the apples and mixing them into the batter.

Soaking the raisins in rum keeps them moist and adds a nice flavor to the ordinary raisin. Even if your raisins are very fresh to start, I still recommend soaking them. There's just something magical that happens when you let dried fruit sit in a little bit of booze. But if you are pressed for time you can skip the soaking step and just add the quantity of rum and dry raisins directly to the batter. Either way, the rum is not overwhelming. There's just enough to remind you that it's there.

The area of cake immediately surrounding each apple nugget stays slightly moist from the juicy apple and provides a nice contrast to the cakier parts of the cake. Someone even said it tasted like bits of custard surrounding the apple.

Even though it's optional I highly recommend brushing the baked loaf cake with the apricot glaze. Although the cake is already very moist and will keep well, the glaze helps retain moisture longer. And it adds a lovely shine to this simple cake.



Thanks to everyone for comments about their favorite vegetable in my zucchini post. And the winner of the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking cookbook giveaway is Claire. She also loves zucchini. Congratulations Claire!


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