A Sweet New Year
L’Shana Tova jackets! The Jewish new year has just passed, and today I want to share a recipe and a cultural tradition of eating apples and honey on Rosh Hashanah to indulge in the sweetness of the next year to come. Honey is eaten as an expression of hope for a good year, and apples are eaten to represent good health and a taste of a fruit not yet eaten during the past year. The first record of this practice was recorded in the 14th century, when a legal text mentioned German Jews eating apples and honey on the first day of the High Holy Days. Rosh Hashanah is a very important time for practicing Jewish people, when we will begin to read the Torah from the beginning and consider our actions of the previous year. Many delicious foods are enjoyed during the holidays, and families all over the world will be celebrating over meals with loved ones. What could be better than freshly sliced apples dipped in sweet, golden honey? Well, I have the answer: caramelized honey apple cake! This is one of my favorite family recipes of all time, and it's on our holiday table every year.
Hazel’s Caramelized Honey Apple Cake
For the apples: Four tart apples, lemon juice, Two tablespoons butter, one to two tablespoons white sugar
For the cake: One cup flour, ¾ cup sugar, two eggs, ½ cup canola oil, three tablespoons dark honey, one teaspoon baking powder, one teaspoon vanilla, ½ teaspoon salt, two to three tablespoons demerara sugar (optional)
Instructions: 1) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease and flour a nine-inch cake pan. 2) Peel, core, and slice the apples into around 12 slices each. Sprinkle the apple slices with lemon juice to prevent browning. 3) Heat butter in a pan over low heat and add apples and one to two tablespoons of the white sugar. Stir for around 10 to 15 minutes until the apples soften. Some of the liquid will soak into the apples, but turn the heat down if too much of it starts to evaporate. 4) While the apples are cooking, mix together the sugar, eggs, canola oil, honey, and vanilla until well combined. Mix in the flour, baking powder, and salt. The batter should be quite thick. 5) Add half of the warm apples, liquid and all, to the batter and mix. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly with a spatula. Arrange the remaining apple slices on top in a decorative circle pattern. 6) Bake the cake for one hour. As it bakes, the high egg content causes the cake to rise up as the heavier fruit sinks slightly and the demerara sugar helps create a crackly crunchy crust that caramelizes slightly at the edges and where the liquid from the apples will pool. 7) After taking the cake out of the oven, let it cool in the pan for 20 minutes before transferring to a rack or plate to cool. Before serving, generously drizzle honey over the top of the cake.