Halloween Apfelkuchen

These apples showed up in our farm box this week, and when farm box gives you strange little apples, make Apfelkuchen! I'm nearly positive that's a saying. I've written about my Apfelkuchen (apple cake usually, sometimes apple pie) obsession before, but this is the first time I've attempted to make it. Here's how it came out:

It was fully awesome. The perfect snack to nom whilst awaiting the Great Pumpkin's arrival. Recipe for real German Apfelkuchen mit Streusel Topping after the jump.


Disclaimer: My kitchen built for giants has no measuring cups/spoons and I adapted this recipe from a German metric one, which means I converted grams and such to cups in my head in order to eyeball measurements (because I cannot eyeball in metric, obviously). This is all to say that the measurements here aren't necessarily the ones I used, but they should work for you.


Note: Apfelkuchen (and other kinds of fruit kuchen) is usually comprised of 3 layers: a bottom cake-like or baked pudding layer, followed by fruit, and topped with a crumbly streusel topping.


Apfelkuchen Streusel
for fruit layer
~ 1 lb. apples
juice of 1/2 a lemon
~ 1 cup hot water
1 cup apple juice

for base layer dough
1 cup flour
1 cup almonds, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
pinch salt
1 cup butter, softened

for streusel topping
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1-3 tbl. water
1/4 cup butter, softened

1/4 powdered sugar for serving

Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Grease 10" (or 8" x 8") baking dish with about 1 tbl. butter.

Mix the juice from 1/2 a lemon and about a cup of hot water together. Peel, core, and slice the apples. Place the slices into the hot lemon water (to prevent browning). Pat dry and place apples and apple juice into a saucepan. Simmer covered for about 10 min. Drain and cool.

Mix all ingredients for base layer dough in a food processor with a plastic dough blade (or mixer with dough hook, or knead with hands). Dough is done when it appears thoroughly mixed and pulls away from the side of the bowl.

Press dough into baking dish with lightly floured hands and prick several times. Pre-bake in oven for 10 min.

Mix flour, sugar, cinnamon, and butter together in a large bowl. Add 1 to 3 tbl. of water as needed. Beat mixture until it turns into crumbles (an electric mixer works well).

Place apples on top of pre-cooked dough layer and top with streusel crumbles.

Bake for 15-20 min., or until slightly browned on top. Cool and serve with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

LCBF and I had a piece with some tea. Here is a transcript of what happened:

Him: Wow. This is good.
Me: Omg, this is really good.
(chomp, chomp, chomp)
Him: It's so moist!
(chomp, crunch, chomp, nom)
Me: THAT WAS AWESOME.
Him: That was totally successful.

So there you have it.