Helena’s Swedish Apple Cake with Vanilla Sauce
While none of us recall every meal ever enjoyed, some dishes are standouts, imprinting flavors and fragrances in our mind’s palate for years to come. Catching a whiff of a once-savored sauce, soufflé or soup instantly transports us back to a specific table, and to the faces of those with whom we pulled up chairs, held hands in blessing and passed gifts of food to one another. To gather at the table, to share a meal, is to draw indelible lines between people connected over food. Lemony hollandaise lands me back at the table of newly found friends as a “new kid” in fifth grade. This piquant sauce spilled over asparagus still kindles warmth and welcome to me. And most of us, I dare say, have a favorite dish that sits us down once again next to a loving grandparent.
It’s a humble apple cake that ties me to Helena, my college roommate in Sweden. Sometimes on weekends we visited her family where her mother set a beautiful table and served incredibly tasty food. Everything about Helena’s home drew me in and made me feel alive and alert. Beautiful textiles warmed the dining room where delicate Linnea flowers grew up the sides of tiny cups that held powerfully strong coffee. Upon a matching plate I was handed a slice of Swedish apple cake followed by a small pitcher of silky smooth vanilla sauce. What a perfect dessert; not fancy, but homey, warm, flavorful and satisfying. I liked that it wasn’t as sweet as its American counterparts, and the juxtaposition of the spicy cake with the mellow vanilla sauce is described best in Swedish as lagom. It’s what Goldilocks was after…not too hot, not too cold, neither too hard, nor too soft. Just right!
Kjerstin, my friend’s mom, generously gave me her recipe. It has been my trusty “go to” when I need a delicious dessert on short notice. A while back, I mentioned to Helena that I still make her mom’s apple cake and that it’s a favorite both at home and in the classes I teach. Neither Helena nor her mom had any idea what cake I was talking about! So, after 29 years I brought the recipe back to my Swedish friends. It returned to the home that was forever in my mind when I put apples to cook in the saucepan and mixed up the dough with two fingers and a thumb, a method that seemed foreign, but also very clever.
Exchanging recipes and partaking of the meal they create forms community in a beautiful way. Bumping knees under the table, inhaling with others the heady steam from a single pot of beef bourguignon melts away loneliness. It satisfies our soulful need for fellowship as well as our bodily need for sustenance. And the dish enjoyed links us together. A recipe box becomes a scrapbook of meals well remembered, kept alive by making and remaking, bringing to mind good gatherings with loved ones. Sure, we may tweak the way a loaf of bread is formed, or the proportions of a vinaigrette, but we remember the origins of a dish and the friend who offered it up. The blessedness of our eating and sharing life together continues on extending love long after we have pushed in our chairs and left the table.
Helena’s Swedish Apple Cake
1 ¼ cups plus 2 T. all-purpose flour (165 gm)
½ cup granulated sugar (100 gm)
pinch of salt
2 ¼ tsp. baking powder
6 T. unsalted butter, semi-firm, cut into 12 pieces (85 gm)
1 egg
2 oz. almond paste, grated (60 gm) optional
1/3 cup sliced or slivered almonds (30 gm)
Filling:
5-6 apples, Jonathan, Braeburn, Haralson,Cortland, or your favorite (about 1 ½ lbs.)
½ tsp. cinnamon
2 T. sugar (Add sugar only if the apples aren’t very sweet.)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9-inch spring form pan. Peel, core and slice apples and place in a saucepan. Cover and cook over med-low flame for 10-15 minutes or until slightly tender, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, stir in cinnamon and sugar and set aside to cool slightly.
In mixing bowl, stir together dry ingredients. Add butter; mix with pastry blender or fingers until crumbly. Add egg and mix by hand using two fingers and thumb, making a uniform crumbly mixture, with butter lumps the size of small peas. Press two thirds of the dough into the pan, covering the bottom and one inch up the sides.
Pour apple filling into bottom crust, juice and all. Distribute almond paste evenly over apples. Sprinkle the remaining dough on top, keeping it crumbly, not pressed down. Scatter almonds on top. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown. Before serving, dust top of cake with a little confectioners’ sugar. Serve warm with vanilla sauce.
Serves 8
Vanilla Sauce
1 ½ cups half-and-half
1 vanilla bean, sliced in half lengthwise or 1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 T. sugar
4 egg yolks
Whisk egg yolks together in a mixing bowl and set aside. Whisk half-and-half and sugar together in small saucepan. Add vanilla bean. Cook over low heat, stirring so it doesn’t scorch. When it begins to steam, pour half of this hot mixture in a narrow stream into the beaten egg yolks, stirring constantly.
Return egg and cream mixture to the pan. Continue stirring and cook sauce over low heat until it thickens. Do not boil. Mixture should reach 170 degrees F. Remove from heat and stir for a few minutes. Remove vanilla bean, scraping tiny vanilla seeds into sauce. Pour sauce through a sieve into a serving pitcher or glass jar. Cool with a piece of plastic wrap resting on the surface. Serve a small pitcher of the chilled sauce alongside the cake.
Photos: Karl-Jon Sparrman