Confession time! As someone with more opinions than I can fit in three cookbooks, one audiobook, and even 18 years of archives on this website, sometimes when I want to grumble about something food-related but it’s not the time or place, I tuck it in a little document called “rants” that is so full of cringe, you only have my permission to publish posthumously. But I can’t write a headnote for this particular cake without first owning up to #23 on the list in advance: “Apple cider cakes are lies.” Which begs the questions: Who hurt you, Deb? What gives? Essentially, my quibble is that you can put all of the wonderful fresh-pressed apple cider you want in a cake, but it rarely comes through to actually taste like apple cider. The flavor is not robust enough. I’m not saying it can’t be wildly delicious with all of the cinnamon spice we also put in these cakes, but it rarely, to me, tastes like an accurate representation of its name.
And yet here I am, riding in on the Audacity Express with none other than an apple cider cake for you today. If history is any indication, and by history I mean my previous recipes for Apple Cider Caramels, Apple Cider Doughnuts, and even the Apple Cider Old-Fashioned (from Smitten Kitchen Keepers), you can probably already guess that I’m going to start this recipe by reducing the apple cider so it’s more concentrated and the flavor better comes through. It’s not going to have the intense apple cider clarity of the caramels or cocktail, but it’s heading in the right direction. We’re adding the cake’s spices right to the apple cider so as it cooks away on the stove, it’s going to be like the simmer pot of your dreams exploded (gently, aromatically) in the kitchen and this alone makes this recipe worth dropping everything to make. To smell it is to long sigh — I am serious.
But I’m utterly burying the lede to not also mention that this cake is dairy-free and egg-free, i.e. vegan. It filled a void last month when when I’d realized that the traditional honey cakes for the Jewish new year were something that neither the vegan, nor the egg- and dairy-allergic members of our family could enjoy and whipped this up as a swap. I had not expected that the cake would so soundly knock it out of the park on the first round, that it would taste precisely like a warm apple cider doughnut, the kind that’s the highlight of apple picking excursions, but it is the reason I’ve made it several times since, even when there were no dietary limitations at hand. Like the other dairy-free, egg-free cakes on this site [Chocolate Olive Oil Cake, Plush Confetti Cupcakes, Plush Coconut Cake] this is an incredibly springy, moist cake. You’ll never know what it’s “missing,” because it tastes as good as every cake should. Don’t skip the glaze; it really brings home the apple cider flavor.
[This cake apparently fulfilled my lucky-on-the-first-try recipe testing quota for the year as I’ve been lumping along pathetically in everything else I’ve cooked since. Balance!]
Something new! I’m so excited to announce the special audiobook edition of Smitten Kitchen Keepers, Smitten Kitchen Keepers: A Kitchen Counter Conversation! Available on November 12th and read by me, I hope it feels exactly like you’ve pulled up a chair and I’m hanging out in the kitchen with you, discussing techniques, substitutions, and chatting about what I think makes each recipe special. Bonus recipe: When you purchase the audiobook, you will receive a signed holiday card from me with a bonus recipe! To receive your card and recipe, complete the form with your purchase order number right here. [US Residents, 18+. Ends December 13, 2024.]
Podcast! A new episode of my podcast with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, is out and it’s all about Popcorn. You can listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts and catch up on any episodes you’ve missed right here. New episodes drop every other Monday. I hope you enjoy listening as much as we’re enjoying the conversation.
