French Apple Cake

This year I am more than usual drawn to challenges, especially such including lists. It is probably the structure and feeling of accomplishment lists provide, together with the boost of dopamine one gets from checking the items off the list.

The first of these challenges is Make Nine, of which I have already made two items (the second is to be revealed very soon, I hope). Then, I recently came upon Clean Lady's system for cleaning your house and maintaining it decluttered and clean - a problem that has always pursued me and bothered me. I watched a number of videos, read some of the posts on her blog and have decided to give it a go in February, following her Homekeeping Calendar - a neat sheet of lists for every day of the month with a number of tasks to accomplish for the day. Seems interesting and doable and I am really curious if it'll be better than my haphazard approach to cleaning and tidying. 

And the third challenge I have decided to uptake - International cooking. Recently FB offered me 10 Classic French Recipes Easy Enough to Make Anytime and I got hooked. First I planned to make all of the listed recipes, but then it occurred to me, that I would like to try other cuisines too, so I've decided to make 2022 the Year of International Cuisines. Each month I'll try at least five recipes from some region of the world. And because it was these French recipes, that gave me the inspiration, January is the month of France. So far I made the Omelette (not much different from what I usually do, but there were a few useful tips, like keeping it moister and the dragging to create waves); the Pommes Persillade - these took some time to prepare, but were undoubtedly worth it and a hit at home. The Omelette and the Persillades are definitely worth becoming a staple in our kitchen.

The third recipe is the French Apple Cake. It is very moist and buttery and though kind of similar in the form of products and method of preparation to a cake I often make at home - the Hooligan cake, the different proportion of the products used and most of all the amount of butter, make it taste distinctly unlike the Hooligan.

So, here are the products and methods I used to make my cake:

Products:

• 3 average apples Golden delicious variety
• 100 g butter (unsalted, as is usually sold here)
  
• 1 cup flour
• 150 g brown sugar
• 5 g baking powder
• 2 eggs size L
• 2 vanillas, a pinch of salt
• 60 ml golden rum
  

I peeled and diced the apples, beat the eggs with the sugar, added the butter and the rum and then folded in the flour with the spices and in the end the apples. The resulting batter was very thick and not at all runny as most cake batter is. I baked the cake at 180C in a preheated oven, for about 35 min.

After the cake cooled, I served it with coffee for son and myself and tee for husband. And then I remembered to sprinkle powdered sugar on top :)

So, impressions: Husband loved it. He is a fan of butter and cakes and the more the butter the better. Son and I, however, were frankly disappointed. I don't like so much butter in my cakes, it overpowers the taste and does not allow the top to get meringue-like and crusty - the feature we all like most about the Hooligan cake. So, no, I'm happy I tried it but in this case I'll stick to my similar but different old recipe.