Recipe: Russian Grandmother's Apple Pie-Cake
Music: Russian Classical Guitar for 7 and 6 String Guitars - Andrei Krylov
Russian Grandmother's Apple Pie-Cake
For The Dough
2 sticks room temperature butter
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon baking powder (we used baking soda - worked just as well)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Juice of 1 lemon
3 1/4 – 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
For The Apples
10 McIntosh apples (the ones we found were a bit small - I suggest larger apples or more if you want a lot of filling)
Squirt of fresh lemon juice
1 cup moist, plump raisins (dark or golden)
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Mix together all the ingredients for the apples and set aside. I use less sugar than is called for because I don't like my desserts too sweet. The recipe claims that you can use just about any type or mixture of apple, but again, for the tartness, I chose the McIntosh.
Cut the sugar into the butter for the dough. If you do not have a pastry cutter or have left yours at home and are baking at a friend's house, you can get just as good results using a fork. Add the eggs, baking (soda?) powder and salt, and slowly cut the flour into the mixture. This was the part of the process where I thought about the standing mixer which was offered to me, and which I declined for lack of counter space. As the dough thickens with flour, if you do not have any kind of electric mixer, I find it's best to just get messy and mix it with your hands. This is an interesting dough, not as dry as pie crust and not as wet as cake batter. Use your judgment when adding flour; it is supposed to be able to be formed into a ball, and dry enough that it will not stick to the edges of the bowl. I think I made mine a little stickier than the recipe called for and had to scrape the edges of my bowl with my fingers. Chill in the fridge for about half an hour.
Before you are ready to bake, you are supposed to divide the dough ball in half and roll it out into two uniform rectangles. . As before, with my fish pie, I still do not have a rolling pin, nor would it have served me, as it would have been back at home with the pastry cutter in any event. A suggestion was made to use a drumstick to roll it out, but was rejected out of hand; my grandma's old liquor bottle trick would not have worked either, as my friends drink whiskey out of square bottles. We ended up splitting the dough in half, pressing the bottom crust into a well buttered pan with our hands, dumping in the apples, and flattening the rest of the dough with our palms into little pancakes in an attempt at uniform thickness. These we pressed on top of the apples. When asked, "do you think it will look like the picture?" It's possible that I scoffed at the entire project.
Bake in an oven that is preheated to 375 degrees, set a timer for 60 minutes (as the recipe claims) and sit back to drink hot mulled wine, watch the snow fall, and listen to Bloomburg state quite clearly that you have to return to work the following day. After about 15 or 20 minutes, you may experience that wonderful baking moment when the whole apartment starts to smell delicious and you know your apple pie-cake is almost finished. This will be followed by a moment of panic as you realize the pie-cake is supposed to bake another 40 minutes at least. I pulled it out, tested it, and it was cooked through. Sometimes recipes lie, I guess. Use your nose and a toothpick.
We served this as dessert after a vodka marinated steak and a repeat artichoke dish (minus the walnuts in the sauce). The vodka was a bit strong on the steak, the artichokes are a lot of work to eat, and I'm not convinced at all that either recipe was authentically Russian.
The best part was dessert. Making this on a snowy day (when you have unexpectedly been granted a day off from teaching) is the best spice I suggest adding to the recipe. But, trekking out into the snow to buy the ingredients and dealing with your boots, and umbrella, and mittens, and scarf, and parka, and hat might account for why I forgot to pick up baking powder and had to settle on baking soda instead. It was delicious. In fact, although a little dry for dessert that night, the leftovers apparently had time to absorb more the of apple juices, and for breakfast the next day it was perfect.
Special Thanks to Jay and Ben for taking such good food photos!
About the Book: Class and eligible matches make up so much of the peacetime activities of this book that social climbing should be made into an Olympic sport. Mothers and even fathers, will scrupple at nothing to increase their own portion through the crafty placement of their children. In the matter our nearly villainous Vasili Kuragin, he is actually willing to destroy the will of his dying relative Count Bezhukov in order that the estate should not fall into the hands of Bezhukov's illegitimate son Pierre. Anna Mikhaylovna wants Pierre to inheret the estate so that he will give money to her son, and also to stop Kuragin from getting it. Bezhukov's unwed eldest (and legitimate) daughter, is just pissed off that in no way is anything significant going to fall to her.
How do you behave at a funeral? While the man is dying, and the priests are performing last rites, and the genuinely and the falsely grieving are gathered together, ready to pounce on the dying man's corpse, the daughter and Kuragin lift his portfolio from under his dying head, intending to destroy his will. They are intercepted by Anna who actually tries to wrestle the portfolio from the daughter's hands. A struggle ensues which is only broken up by the anticipated death. Anna wins. However, at no point does any one call out or raise their voice. At no point does anyone throw Anna out, or Kuragin, or wonder why such a struggle is taking place in the doorway of a dying man's room. Almost entirely, the meeting is carried out with the utmost of manners, except for the daughter, who looses her temper and calls Anna a horrible woman, and that, only when she realizes she has lost her father's will.
Not to fret though, despite Pierre's inheriting the estate, all is not lost for Vasili Kuragin, he manages to get Pierre engaged to his own daughter, a beautiful vamp girl with no regard for Pierre or anyone but herself, and so, in the end, though it's hinted that Anna and her son profit something from Pierre, it is Kuragin who is best placed after all. Boris, Anna's son, is left to forge his own path in finding a rich wife, a task which takes him from Petersburg to Moscow.
About the music: Still delightful.
