Apple-Date Cider Cake
When the apples start falling from the trees, it’s time to make cider…and when you have plenty of apples and cider on hand, it’s time to make cider cake! Especially if you have leftover bread you can add to to the mix rather than making a more traditional flour-based batter. (I came up with this recipe when I got home from the cider mill and realized I had bread begging to be used. Necessity is the mother of culinary inventions, too!) With the cubed bread tossed in, this cake is actually more like bread pudding than cake. The good news is that the bread you use can be fresh, stale, or previously frozen; the finished texture will vary, but as long as the cake looks decently wet going into the oven, it’ll be moist enough when it comes out.
The other good news is that since apples are so sweet in their own right, you won’t need to add any sugar — a few dates will provide both a hint of sweetness and a richer, more complex flavor. And you can play with different spices to see which ones you like best.
Apple-Date Cider Cake
1 T. butter or ghee
3 firm apples, sliced into thin wedges (UNpeeled)
5 dates, pitted and chopped
2 tsp. cinnamon OR a total of 2 tsp. of any combination of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and/or allspice
About 1/2 cup apple cider, divided
2-3 cups cubed bread (gluten-free if you like, or standard whole-wheat bread)
Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9″ round glass pan.
Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add apples, dates, and cinnamon and let cook for about 5 minutes or until apples are beginning to soften. Pour in 1/4 cup of the cider and let the apples cook for another 2-3 minutes.
If the pan is large enough to accommodate the cubed bread, stir the cubes directly into the pan; if the pan doesn’t look like it can hold everything, transfer the apple mixture to a large bowl and then stir in the bread. Spoon cake into the prepared pan and pour in the final 1/4 cup of cider, adding another 1/4 cup if the cake looks too dry. (Cider should come about halfway up the side of the apple-and-bread mixture. You don’t want it drowning in the cider, but you want more than just a thin layer of cider at the bottom. How much cider you use will also depend on how much bread you use — 2 cups or 3 cups — and how dense/absorbent the bread is.)
Bake for 20 minutes. Serve cake on its own or topped with fresh fruit or a dollop of whole Greek yogurt. If you like, mix the yogurt with a hint of maple syrup and a splash of vanilla extract in a small bowl before you add it to the cake. (You’ll essentially have a quick vanilla ice cream.) Leftover cake makes a nice breakfast, too.
Enjoy!
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Tags: apple cider, apples, bread pudding, breakfast, dates, gluten-free
