Polish creamed-butter apple sheet cake: fluffy, buttery, thin apple slices on top
Not a szarlotka, though made with apples: szarlotka is shortcrust and a thick layer of stewed apples, while this is a fluffy creamed-butter sponge on which thin apple slices bake together with the batter and soften as they sink in. Simpler, faster and lighter. Twenty-five minutes of work, one tray, sixteen pieces for coffee.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Creaming 25 min
- Baking 45 min
- Cooling 15 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneSlice the apples
Heat the oven to 180 °C and line the tray with paper. Peel the apples, quarter, core and cut into slices 3 mm thick. Splash with lemon juice at once so they don't brown. Mix the sugar with the cinnamon.
Ingredients: 700 g apples · ½ pcs lemon, juice · 2 tbsp sugar · 1 tsp cinnamon · 1 tbsp icing sugar
TipThin slices soften in 45 minutes together with the batter. Thick quarters stay hard inside or sink and leave a soggy layer.
3 mm slices, lemon at onceCream the butter and sugar
Beat the soft butter with the sugar and vanilla sugar for 5 minutes, until pale and fluffy like a cream. This aeration is what makes the cake light; don't cut it short.
Ingredients: 200 g butter · 180 g sugar · 1 tbsp vanilla sugar · 4 pcs eggs · 300 g plain flour · 2 tsp baking powder · 1 pinch salt
TipThe butter should be soft but not melted: a finger goes in without resistance, the block holds its shape. Melted butter won't aerate and the cake comes out dense.
Five minutes, pale and fluffyAdd the eggs and flour
Add the eggs one at a time, beating half a minute after each until smooth. Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt, add to the mass and fold with a spatula or the mixer on its lowest speed only until combined. The batter is thick and falls off the spoon in large pieces.
TipCold eggs curdle the mass into lumps. If that happens, add a spoon of the measured flour and keep beating.
Eggs one at a time, flour brieflySpread and lay the apples
Scrape the batter into the tray and level it. Arrange the apple slices on top in overlapping rows, pressing them lightly into the batter. Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar.
Rows of slices, cinnamon sugarBake
Bake 40–45 minutes at 180 °C, until the batter has risen around the apples and turned golden, and a skewer pushed between the apples comes out dry. The apples should be soft and lightly caramelised at the edges.
Golden sponge, soft apples, a dry skewerCool and dust
Cool in the tray 15 minutes, cut into squares, dust with icing sugar. Warm with cream or ice cream, cold with coffee. Covered, it keeps 3 days; on the second day it is moister.
Squares, icing sugar
Before you start
With streusel
Scatter a streusel of 100 g flour, 70 g cold butter and 50 g sugar rubbed into crumbs over the apples. A crunchy top, even more autumnal.
With pears or plums
The same cake with sliced pears or halved Italian plums, skin side down. Always 700 g of fruit.
The cake sank under the apples
Apples too thick or too wet, or the oven opened in the first half of baking. Thin slices patted dry with a towel, and the first 30 minutes without peeking.
