Apple-Wine-Cake (Apfelweinkuchen)

This is a fall favorite. No further comment needed.

Ingredients:

Baking sheet or one 9x11 inch (30x40 cm) Pyrex form

Some grease

Baking frame or aluminum foil when using a baking sheet

Pie crust:

300 g wheat flour

50 g potato starch

1 leveled teaspoon baking powder

150 g sugar

1 package vanilla sugar or some vanilla aroma

1 pinch of salt

2 eggs (optional, can be exchanged for 60 ml or two tablespoons milk)

150 g (1 stick) butter or margarine

Topping:

2 kg or 4 lb apples

Juice from one lemon

4.6 oz package vanilla cook and serve JELL-O

(or alternatively: 3 packages Dr. Oetker vanilla pudding powder and 150 g of sugar)

2 packages vanilla sugar or some vanilla aroma

500 ml apple juice (2 cups)

375 ml white wine (1/2 bottle)

Glaze:

375 ml white wine (1/2 bottle)

300 ml apple juice

50 g sugar

50 g potato starch

3 tablespoons arrowroot starch

(or instead of the starches: 3 packages Tortenguss klar/cake glaze clear)

Preparation:

1. Grease baking sheet or Pyrex form. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).

2. Prepare pie crust: Mix flour, starch and baking powder in a bowl. Add remaining ingredients and use the knead hooks of an electric hand mixer to form a dough. Shape into a rod. Roll dough flat on baking sheet or Pyrex form. Pierce pie crust with a fork multiple times. If using a baking sheet put a baking frame of the size of the sheet around or use aluminum foil to build a frame.

3. Pre-bake pie crust for 15 min at 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).

4. Prepare apple topping: Peel and core apples, cut into small pieces, and cover with lemon juice to prevent the apples from turning brown.

5. In a stovetop pot, mix apple juice, wine and pudding powder. Bring mixture to a boil while constantly stirring. When liquid thickens, remove pot from stove, and stir in apples. Pour apple mix on top of pre-baked pie crust, level, then bake for another 40 min.

6. Remove cake from oven and let cool down.

7. Prepare glaze: In a stovetop pot, mix apple juice and wine. Remove three tablespoons of that liquid and stir in the starches. Bring wine-juice mixture to a boil while constantly stirring. Remove from heat and stir in the dissolved starches. When liquid thickens, pour over apple layer and level. Let glaze cool down the refrigerate cake.

8. Before serving, carefully remove baking frame from cake, cut into pieces and serve.

Comments:

1. Pie crust: I used milk instead of the eggs because the crust is less crumbly and doesn't need to be refrigerated before rolled out. However, I think that next time I would not pre-bake the crust, or if then only for 5 minutes, because it got very hard over the remaining baking time.

Well, a day later, the pie crust was nice and soft, so or wasn't bad at all, just needed an extra day.

2. Apple topping: Because the vanilla cook and serve JELL-O I used already contains sugar I left out the additional sugar asked for in the recipe. I used Gala apples because they are my favorite kind, but the original recipe calls for apples that are a little on the tart side (e.g. Elstar).

3. Glaze: Tortenguss mainly contains starch and sugar, so it can easily be made using potato starch and/or arrowroot starch. Cornstarch can be used, too, but the glaze will appear milky and not clear.

4. Garnish the cake with chopped almond pieces or some whipped cream.

5. To make an alcohol-free version of this cake, exchange the wine for apple juice, and leave out the additional sugar.