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Homemade cakes with fruit and nuts are always a bliss to relish. But beware of this one over here which is a mesmerising treat and could easily become your next cake crush! We call it Apple Caramel Lava Cake. The cake is prepared by lavishly layering sliced apples and blueberries in 3 layers and pouring regular cake batter all over it. The end is marked by suffusing the volcano-shaped baked cake with caramel sauce and a dash of cocoa powder which makes the cake a tempting sight to bear and a rare treat to the tongue. However, the best part is that you don't need to ransack it through the menus of restaurants and eateries to have one. You can bake one yourself with some clear-cut steps and neat execution. Apple Caramel Lava Cake is a fusion of caramelised apples, apple cake and lava cake or hot molten chocolate cake. We can trace the journey and roots of each of these dishes separately to understand this fusion cake. Beginning with caramelised apples, they are simply whole apples covered in a layer of caramel which is a brown liquid prepared by heating sugar. The first caramel apples were created in 1948 by the Kastrup family of Chicago, the US. Next comes apple cakes, the cake in which apples are incorporated in diced, pureed, or stewed, forms and combined with nuts and sweet spices like cinnamon or nutmeg powder. Although apple cakes are today found throughout the world, they are considered culinary symbols in the traditionally agricultural parts of England. Interestingly the apple cakes here are named after the names of the cities, such as Dorset apple cake, Devonshire apple cake, and Somerset apple cake. The last fusion element in the Apple Caramel Cake is the lava or the hot molten chocolate, which was created first by the French chef Michel Bras in 1981, after 2 long years of research. Lava cake combines the chocolate cake and a soufflé, where the molten chocolate also known as lava is poured into the centre.
Here’s the recipe
Preparation time: 1 hour
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Servings: 2-3
Ingredients:
1. 3 apples
2. 1 packet of frozen blueberries
3. Cocoa powder
For the batter:
1. 1 cup all-purpose flour
2. ½ cup milk
3. 3 eggs
4. 2 tbsps melted butter
5. A pinch of lemon zest
6. ¾ cup sugar
7. Vanilla essence
For the caramel sauce:
1. 1 and ½ cups sugar
2. ½ cup apple juice
3. 2 tbsps butter
4. 2 tbsps heavy cream
Method:
1. Remove the seeds from the core of the apples, and cut them into equally-sized very thin slices.
2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
3. In a bundt pan, put the first layer of half of the apples. Then layer it with blueberries so that they completely cover the apples.
4. Layer it up again with the remaining sliced apples.
5. In another bowl, add all the batter ingredients, mix them with a spatula and then blend them into a smooth batter.
6. Pour this batter over the apples and blueberries in the bundt pan.
7. Bake for 40 minutes.
8. In the meantime, prepare the caramel sauce, by heating half of the apple juice and sugar in a saucepan or pot until it becomes brown.
9. Then add butter, milk and remaining apple juice. Mix all well and then let it cool slightly.
10. When the baked cake cools, transfer it to a plate, and pour the caramel into the hole in the centre of the cake.
11. Then sprinkle cocoa powder over it.
It is great if fruits find their way into your home-baked cakes as it means delectable taste without compromising health. A slice of apple caramel lava cake flooded with buttery caramel and cocoa is surely going to nourish your sweet tooth in a subtly different way.
