Pass on the pumpkin spice. This season, bite into something real. Autumn means fresh apples.
Apples bring sweetness naturally, so they’re naturally a Rosh Hashanah favorite. We celebrate the Jewish new year with sweetness in the hope of a sweet year to come. In many Jewish families, this means apples and honey. My apple cake loses the honey and gains a plant-based makeover, but the tradition and the apples are keepers.
When I went to school in Vermont, apples were everywhere this time of year. They were so plentiful, the locals didn’t mind if a poor student harvested a few — free food! Some apples still in hung from the trees, others gently decomposed on the ground, a feast for the bees. It was only fair — bees pollinate apples and so many of the fruits and vegetables we depend on and love.
There are over 4,000 apple cultivars (thanks, bees), but the world once boasted even more. Many heirloom varietals have been lost over time, due to lack of demand. Once they’re gone, they never come back.
This apple season, reach beyond the Red Delicious and taste an heirloom like an Opal, a Braeburn, or an Envy, Turn on your mouth to something new and delicious, and do a good turn for the earth, too. Eating more apple varietals promotes greater biodiversity. Taste all the flavors life has to offer.
Every time I make this apple cake, I’m swept away by the sense memory of my first experience crunching into a fresh-picked apple, the brisk Vermont air heady with their scent, tangy and floral at the same time. I feel that first-time thrill all over again. That’s the feeling Jews strive to create every Rosh Hashanah — a sense of wonder and possibility, of the sweet and the new.
How to Make Apple Cake
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly oil a 9” springform pan.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat together vegan butter, evaporated cane sugar and seltzer until fluffy and light. May look slightly curdled at this point. Don’t panic.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Add the dry ingredients and the oat milk alternately to the butter mixture.
- Keep a light hand, mix just until the ingredients are combined. Spoon the batter into the pan.
- Peel and core the apples. Use your impressive knife skills to slice thinly. Toss the slices with lemon juice to keep them from browning.
- Press the apple slices into the batter, keeping them about 1/4 inch apart, core side down. Arrange apples in a circular pattern around the outside edge, like the rays of the sun, and then closer and closer to the center, till you run out of room or apples.
- Scatter the cranberries and candied ginger on top, if using, and finish with a sprinkle of demerara sugar and cinnamon.
- Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a cake tester or skewer inserted in the center of the comes out clean and your kitchen smells sweet.
- Let cool before unmolding.
- Finish with powdered sugar and serve with caramel sauce or date honey, if desired.
Key Ingredients and Optional Adds
- Apples —you can’t make apple cake without them. Crisper, crunchier, firmer ones like sassy Granny Smith and Pink Lady hold up best in this cake. Save softer Macintosh apples for pie and applesauce.
- Club soda/seltzer/soda water — three names for the carbonated water that helps bind the batter and gives this cake its lift without eggs, calories, or having to open a can of chickpeas for aquafaba. Just a splash of seltzer does the trick.
- Dried fruit and nuts —Crystalized ginger is a favorite way to add a little fanciness and flavor. Ginger and apples love each other, and I love the way chopped crystalized ginger sparkles. A handful of fresh or dried cranberries, nuts, raisins or other chopped dried fruit would be welcome, too. Or you can omit them and let the apples shine by themselves.
- Tradition — The apple cakes that make people swoony, moony, and happiest at Rosh Hashanah are the old-fashioned recipes that taste like your mom or grandmother used to make. They’re a sweet way to connect to Jewish heritage. They make you feel mothered and pampered in the best way. I hope my apple cake does that for you.
Want it stickier and sweeter without honey? My caramel sauce recipe published on Medium delivers. So does my date honey. Dates are one of Judaism’s seven sacred foods, too. Watch me make date honey in this quick video. LINK
I adapted and veganized this apple cake from a recipe by Sally Schmitt, chef and owner of The French Laundry. Before Thomas Keller made the Yountville restaurant famous, Schmitt was its heart and soul, and a pioneer of farm-to-table before it was even a thing.
I used to make an enormous elaborate pear and cranberry crostata for our big Thanksgiving gatherings. It was my showstopper, and pain in the butt to make. This is so much easier to make and is really more my kind of thing, realer somehow, and still very stylish. This apple cake is a treat by itself for Rosh Hashanah, Thanksgiving, any time. It’s a proper dessert you could get away with eating for breakfast or an afternoon pick-me-up, too.
Apple Cake
Ingredients
- 6 tablespoons vegan butter Miyoko’s rules, plus a little for greasing the pan
- 3/4 cup fine evaporated cane sugar whizz it in the food processor for a minute if you need to
- 1/4 cup plain seltzer
- 1-1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour or spelt flour — hey it’s Whole Grains Month get into the spirit
- 2 teaspoons aluminum-free baking powder
- freshly grated nutmeg or okay, 1/4 teaspoon dried
- 1/2 cup oat milk or your favorite plant-based milk
- 2-3 apples like Granny Smiths or Gravensteins
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- 1 cup cranberries optional
- 2 tablespoons candied ginger chopped (optional)
- 1 tablespoon demerara sugar
- sprinkle of cinnamon
- powdered sugar optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly butter a 9” springform pan.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat together vegan butter and evaporated cane sugar and seltzer until fluffy and light. May look slightly curdled at this point. Don’t panic.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Add the dry ingredients and the oat milk alternately to the butter mixture.
- Keep a light hand, mix just until the ingredients are combined. Spoon the batter into the pan.
- Peel and core the apples. Use your impressive knife skills to slice thinly. Toss the slices with lemon juice to keep them from browning.
- Press the apple slices into the batter, keeping them about 1/4 inch apart and core side down. Arrange apples in a circular pattern around the outside edge, like the rays of the sun, and then closer and closer to the center till you run out of room or apples. Scatter the cranberries and candied ginger on top, if using, and finish with a sprinkle of demerara sugar and cinnamon.
- Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a cake tester or skewer inserted in the center of the comes out clean and your kitchen smells sweet.
- Let cool before unmolding. Finish with powdered sugar and serve with caramel sauce, if desired.
How About These Apples?
- Apples and dill give a boost to borscht from vegan visionary and artist, Nava Atlas www.navaatlas.com.
- Fun fact — while Russia has claimed borsht as its own, UNESCO officially credits Ukraine.
- Also probably Ukrainian in origin, my wine-braised cabbage with apples and caraway, is a quick, easy way to give humble cabbage a touch of gourmet and glamour.
- @Orchidsandsweettea’s Shanika Graham-White shares her recipe for this knockout kale and apple salad.
- This apple strudel recipe comes with a sweet back story.
Thank you for reading my vegan stories and plant-based recipes. I sincerely love to connect with listeners and would like to hear your feedback, takeaways, “ah-ha!” moments, etc in the comments.
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