Apple and Raisins Tray Cake – Prajitura Turnata cu Mere

Since it’s the middle of autumn, I just had to take advantage of using some delicious, local apples, and make an apple and raisins tray cake. I chose to make a fluffy apple cake, even though one of the most popular Romanian apple cakes is made with a dough that has a crumblier texture.

If you’ve followed my blog for some time, you’ve probably seen that I have a thing for fluffy cakes. Even so, for the next recipes, I’ll try to get out of my comfort zone and show you some other types of cakes and cookies.

But let’s stick to our cake right here – I chose to make a filling which contains grated apples cooked in a pan with sugar, then I added some delicious raisins and a teaspoon of cinnamon which made my kitchen smell heavenly.

I’ve used some red apples from the region of Voine?ti, a village in Romania which is very popular for its apple trees – you’ll find a wide variety of Romanian apples here and some beautiful sceneries. If you decide to visit this part of the country, you’ll see that it’s only 1.5 hours away from Bucharest, so you can easily get there. You’ll find lots of locals who sell fruits and vegetables in front of their houses, and most of them are always happy to invite you in their gardens.

If you want to try making this Romanian apple cake (please do, it’s amazing), make sure you leave the eggs and the milk out of the fridge to reach room temperature before starting to use them. I’ve noticed that if you want to get a fluffy apple and raisins cake, you really need to have all the ingredients at the same temperature.

If you don’t use red, sweet apples like I did in this recipe, you can choose to add up to 50 grams of sugar more to the filling, especially if you use green, sour apples such as Granny Smith. You’ll have to taste the filling while making it and add sugar to taste.

This cake is a bit different from what I’ve done before. In Romania, it’s actually called ‘poured apple cake’. The batter has a pancake-like consistency, and you have to bake the cake in several stages. First, you pour half of the batter in the tray and cook it for 10 minutes. Only then you can add the filling, and the other half of the batter. The trick is to not completely bake the base part of the cake, but just make it firm enough to hold the filling.

You can also find on Delicious Romania another version of an upside-down Romanian apple cake with whole apples filled propecia online cheap with sour cherry preserve and topped with whipped cream.

Ingredients

Batter:

4 eggs

300 g sugar

120 ml oil

180 ml milk

350 g flour

10 g baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

Filling:

2 kg apples

150 g sugar

70 g raisins

1 tsp cinnamon

Plus icing sugar for dusting

Directions

1. Start by grating the apples. If they’re too juicy, strain them a bit.
2. In a skillet on medium heat, cook the apples with the sugar until the juices are almost evaporated.
3. Add the cinnamon and the raisins and leave to cool.
4. Preheat the oven to 180°
5. Using a mixer, beat the eggs with the sugar until the sugar is dissolved.
6. Add the oil and the vanilla extract and mix.
7. Mix the flour with the baking powder.
8. Add half of the flour mixture and half of the milk, then the other half of the flour mixture and the remaining milk. The batter should be similar to the one we use for pancakes.
9. In a buttered, medium cake tray covered with baking sheet, add half of the batter and bake it for 10 minutes.
10. Take the tray out of the oven, spread the filling over the batter and add the rest of the batter.
11. Bake for another 30-35 minutes or until the cake is golden brown on top.
12. Take the cake out of the oven, leave it to cool for a bit and dust with icing sugar.

Recipe in Romanian – Re?eta în român?

Ingrediente

Aluat:

4 ou?

300 g zah?r

120 ml ulei

180 ml lapte

350 g f?in?

10 g praf de copt

1 linguri?? de extract de vanilie

Umplutur?:

2 kg de mere

150 g zah?r

70 g stafide

1 linguri?? de scor?i?oar?

Zah?r pudr? pentru decorat

Mod de preparare

1. Rade?i merele pe r?z?toarea mare. Dac? sunt prea suculente, stoarce?i-le un pic.
2. Într-o tigaie la foc mediu, g?ti?i merele cu zah?rul pân? când sucul de la mere este aproape evaporat.
3. Ad?uga?i scor?i?oara ?i stafidele ?i l?sa?i compozi?ia deoparte pân? preg?ti?i aluatul.
4. Preînc?lzi?i cuptorul la 180 ° C.
5. Folosind un mixer sau un tel, bate?i ou?le cu zah?rul pân? când zah?rul este dizolvat.
6. Ad?uga?i uleiul ?i extractul (sau esen?a) de vanilie ?i amesteca?i.
7. Amesteca?i f?ina cu praful de copt.
8. Ad?uga?i jum?tate din amestecul de f?in? ?i jum?tate din lapte, apoi cealalt? jum?tate din amestecul de f?in? ?i laptele r?mas. Aluatul ar trebui s? fie foarte moale, pu?in mai gros decât cel de cl?tite.
9. Într-o tav? de pr?jitur? medie, uns? cu unt ?i tapetat? cu foaie de copt, ad?uga?i jum?tate din aluat ?i coace?i timp de 10 minute.
10. Scoate?i tava din cuptor, întinde?i umplutura peste aluatul pe jum?tate copt, apoi turna?i ?i restul aluatului.
11. Coace?i pentru înc? 30-35 de minute sau pân? când pr?jitura cu mere este de culoare maro aurie.
12. Scoate?i pr?jitura din cuptor, l?sa?i-o s? se r?ceasc? pu?in ?i pudra?i cu zah?r.