Bread Baking Babes; December Holiday Apple Kuchen

Technically I’m not a Babe this month but a Buddy. I think. We’ve had a couple of busy weeks and somehow this cake travelled to the bottom of the list. Yesterday was a long long day for me. It started very early in the morning (as in 3 o’clock early morning) with a trip to the airport. Son #1 planned a 2 week holiday to visit a couple of friends in Japan and of course we waved him goodbye. So on our return a couple of hours later the day officially just started. Plenty time to bake! I started the dough for the Christmas stollen and next was this cross between a cake and a bread. A German apple tray bake on a yeasted dough base. BBB Kitchen of the month: Gretchen, Provecho Peru Holiday Apple Kuchen December 2012.

Followed the recipe but substituted custard powder for the tapioca, used a little less butter. After it had it’s 30 minutes of fame in the oven I decided it needed more than that to get crispy. I was a bit alarmed by the amount of liquid bubbling up at the sides, afraid the bottom would be all soggy. So it took some 10 minutes extra in the oven. In retrospect maybe I should have left it at the 30 minutes and put it under a broiler/grill to get the top nice and crispy. The dough got a bit dry with the extra oventime.

All in all this is an easy bake, the dough behaves very nicely, it’s a tough, stiff elastic dough but will stretch comfortably to fit in the pan. I only used the handmixer for the initial mixing, when I added the remaining flour I used the dough whisk to beat the rest of the flour in. A bit of elbow grease but easy!

Didn’t make the cream cheese topper, in general I love dollops but not when it involves cream cheese.
Would have loved a mascarpone mixed with in this case a bit of rum and brown sugar for instance. Or now that I think of it, what about caramel drizzle? For now I’ll just use a bit of whipped cream.

 

 

Holiday Apple Kuchen

Yield: 12 servings
Source: from the Better Homes & Gardens Holiday Baking 2009 Magazine

Crumb Topping

• 100 gr or 1/2 cup flour
• 70 gr or 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons butter

In a medium bowl, combine flour and brown sugar. Using a pastry blender, cut in butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.

Apple Kuchen

• 350-390 g or 2 1/4 - 2 3/4 cups flour, divided
• 7 gr or 1 package active dry yeast
• 120 gr / 1/2 cup milk
• 100 gr or 1/2 cup Demerara // granulated sugar (I used raw cane sugar)
• 50 gr  or 1/4 cup butter
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 4 cups apple slices (about 4 medium baking apples)
• 66 gr or 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon quick cooking tapioca (didn’t have any, used custard powder to bind the liquid)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon apple pie spice (used our Dutch speculaas spices (click to make your own) which is almost the same)

Grease a 13x9x2 baking pan; set aside. In a large bowl, combine 1 cup of the flour and the yeast; set aside.

In a small saucepan, heat and stir milk, granulated sugar, butter and salt just until mixture is warm (120F-130F) and butter almost melts. Add milk mixture and eggs to flour mixture. Beat with an electric mixer on low to medium speed for 30 seconds, scraping sides of the bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 2 minutes or until smooth. Beat in as much of the remaining flour as you can without the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour to make a stiff batter.

Spread batter into the prepared baking pan. In another large bowl, combine apples, brown sugar, tapioca, lemon juice and apple pie spice. Place apple mixture on top of the batter. Sprinkle with Crumb Topping. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

Bake in a preheated 375F oven for 30 minutes or until top is browned and apples are tender. Cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes.

Cut into 12 pieces and serve warm or at room temperature with a dollop of Cream Cheese Topper on each piece.

Cream Cheese Topper

• 1 (8oz) package cream cheese, softened
• 2/3 whipping cream
• 2/3 cup powdered sugar

In a small bowl, beat cream cheese with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in whipping cream and powdered sugar.

Please visit my fellow Babes (their posts on the right hand side --->) or bake along with us and become a Buddy! Also Katie as our BBBBBBB will have a Babe round up ready.

What IS this Buddy thing?
The Bread Baking Babes are a closed group but we thought it would be fun to reward people who take the effort of baking our breads with us and give them a nice Buddy Badge and mention in a round up post every month. Just to say thank you for baking along and sharing your thoughts with us.
Since we are Babes and do not obey to rules, there are nearly no rules for Buddies, except these:

Bake the featured bread, snap a pic & share your thoughts about how you liked it (or not liked it)

• leave a comment on Holiday Apple Kuchen that you have baked the bread, leaving a link back to your post, or email Gretchen and mention BBB December Bread in the post

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