Torta di mele – Apple Cake

It is a family recipe we have been cooking over and over without remembering the author. Was it my aunt, my granny or my mother who made it up? It doesn’t really matter; it is a family legacy, or better a “family signature dish”.

Everyone in my family knows how to prepare it by heart, as we all remember watching and helping my mother make it when we were children. She let us cracking the eggs and measuring the ingredients but she was the one to beat them with sugar until pale and fluffy. We weren’t allowed to use the knife, so the apple work was reserved to the grown ups. However, how could we forget the pleasure of licking the bowl, kept exclusively for us children, or the sweet aroma infusing the house, which preluded a special afternoon tea?

Yesterday I was so happy when my husband came back home with plenty of apples picked  in his friend's garden. They look perfect for my family cake.

Torta di mele – Apple Cake

4 apples (550 g - 600 g)
The fresh juice of ½ lemon
2 tablespoons sugar
100 g butter, melted
100 g sugar
150 g plain white flour
30 g corn flour
1 and ½ teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extracts
Icing sugar to decorate

Serves 6 to 8
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time; 40 minutes

1. Quarter, core, peel and dice the apples. Arrange them in a bowl along with lemon and sugar. Mix and leave to rest. 
2. Preheat the oven to 180°C. 
3. Melt the butter Bain Marie and leave to cool. 
4. In a bowl mix the flours with the baking powder and sift. 
5. In a food processor beat the eggs with sugar until pale and fluffy, 10 minutes. 
6. Add the flours and mix. 
7. Stir in the butter and the vanilla and mix. 
8. Incorporate the apples with their juice and mix through with a spatula. 
9. Grease a spring form tin (24 cm) with butter and line it with parchment. 
10. Place the apple mixture over the tin and bake for 40 minutes. 
11. Remove from the oven and leave to rest 15 minutes before turning out of the tin and arrange in a serving dish. 
12. Sprinkle with a touch of icing sugar and serve.