Cake with apple roses

I love short pastry, and for this cake, I made a variation of the pastry I use to make Linzer cake. Instead of the warm flavours of cinnamon, I used more lemon peel to give it a fresher taste suitable with the apples. And since it was going to be a birthday cake, I decorated the cake with roses made of thin apple slices.

 

Ingredients | Cake size 22 cm ø
150 g Butter (room temperature)
250 g
 Flour, plain white
150 g
Sugar
10 g
Backing powder
100 g
Ground hazelnuts
1 Egg
½ tsp Vanilla extract
1
 Grated peel of lemon
½ tsp
Clove powder
½ tsp Cinnamon powder
5
Apples, red-skinned

 

Preparation

  1. Mix the butter and sugar until well blended. Add the flour, baking powder, ground hazelnuts, spices, lemon zest and the egg and mix all together. With your hands knead the mixture to a dough. Wrap the dough in kitchen foil and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

  2. Wash and half the apples; remove the cores and then slice the halves lengthwise into very thin slices. Leave the skin on the apples it adds to the pretty appearance.

  3. While slicing the apples drop the slices into a bowl with cold water with a squeeze of lemon, this prevents the apples from going brown through oxidation.

  4. Heat a saucepan with water and bring it to the boil. Cook the apple slices for about 2-3 minutes to soften them. Then cool the apple slices in cold water and lay them out on kitchen paper and dap them dry.

  5. Preheat the oven to 160° C.

  6. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out evenly between two pieces to baking parchment to a circle slightly larger than the baking tin.

  7. Lift the dough gently into the baking tin and push it into the form with your hands. Create a rim around the edge. Place an oven prove smaller plate in the centre of the dough so that it covers the middle but leaves the edge uncovered. Bake the cake with the plate on for 30 minutes.

  8. Take three slices of apple starting with a smaller slice and overlap with the next two slices covering about a third. Then gently roll up the slices beginning with the smallest and shape into a rose. To prevent them from falling apart again, I put them into a small muffin tray to keep them in shape. Continue until you have all rolled up.

  9. After 30 minutes of baking time, take the cake base out of the oven and remove the plate. The edge should have risen.

  10. Place the rolled-up apple-roses rapidly onto the cake centre and fill it densely. Then put the cake back into the oven again and bake for another 10–15 minutes until the pastry is nicely golden-brown colour. Let the cake cool before removing from the baking tin.

    Serving |     Dust the cake with a little icing sugar before serving.