IKEA apple cake

[spinbaby]

I had apple cake again last night at IKEA and have become obsessed with duplicating it. A search of the Internet just reveals a bunch of people also looking for the recipe.

For those of you that haven't had it, it's a slightly sweet pastry crust filled with a very dense apple filling and topped with a light sprinkle of streusel. I suspect the filling is made of reconstituted dried apples because it's not at all "juicy." Each firm apple slice in the filling has a light coating of cinnamon.

As a first attempt, I thought I would line a springform pan with a cookie crust and fill it with dried apples that have been soaked in boiling water for 20 minutes or so, drained, and then tossed with cinnamon. Then top with streusel and bake for half an hour, maybe as much as an hour.

[Tesha]

1. ooops, this calls for a trip to IKEA!

I usually get the chocolate overload cake:hi:

[tigereye]

2. now my mouth is watering...

I love their food! Time to go out there for lunch soon!

[supernova]

3. Joining in with a plate of Gravlax

:hi:

That's a pretty tasty cafe. Don't know how they do it.

[The empressof all]

4. Try soaking those apples in Apple Juice or Cider

I'd even consider adding a splash of Calvados to the brew with a cinnamon stick or cardamom pod.

It will add more flavor to those dried apples

[spinbaby]

5. The cake doesn't really have that much flavor

It's more of a texture thing--very unusual.

[grasswire]

6. that's a traditional Swedish Scania apple cake

Scania is the southernmost province. You'll find a lot of copycat recipes for the Ikea cake on google. Fresh apples, lots of butter, etc.

[spinbaby]

7. I ran across that recipe

But that's not what I had at IKEA. It definitely didn't have lots of butter and I'd lay odds that it was made with dried, not fresh, apples.

[grasswire]

8. another one -- suppposedly from Ikea cookbook 2008

Scanian Apple Pie and Custard

Ingredients

6 apples
2 cups of dried bread crumbs
1 cup of sugar
3 TBSPS butter
1/2 cup of water
cinnamon (optional)

For the custard:

2 egg whites
2 egg yolks
2 TBSPS sugar
2 cups of whip cream
1 1/2 TBSPS vanilla sugar

Procedure:

Heat the oven to 200 degrees C. Peel the apples, de-core them and slice thinly. Make alternate layers of dried bread crumbs. Scatter blobs of butter over this before piuring on the water. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 30 min. Serve with custard.
TO MAKE CUSTARD:
Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs. Beat the yolks and sugar till fluffy. Whisk the cream and vanilla sugar together and add to the egg mixture, then add the (stiffly beaten) egg whites.


Here's a photo of the Ikea apple cake from their web site:

[spinbaby]

9. Looks delicious, but that's not it

There were no bread crumbs in the apples and there was a distinct pastry crust.

[japple]

10. Here is a Dried Apple Tart recipe that my sister makes for holidays. It is

unbelievably rich and has the qualities you described. I think it came from Epicurious.

Dried Apple Tart with Crisp Crumble Topping

For filling
12 oz. dried apples (pref. Granny Smith)
½ cup packed light brown sugar
4 cups water
2 cups apple cider
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
4 3-inch cinnamon sticks

For topping
¾ stick (6 tbsp.) cold unsalted butter
¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup granulated sugar

For pastry dough
1-1/4 sticks (10 tbsp.) cold unsalted butter
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup confectioners’ sugar

Make filling:
In a heavy 5-quart kettle simmer filling ingredients, with a pinch salt, covered, until apples are fully plumped, about 15 minutes. Uncover mixture and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thick and any excess liquid is evaporated or absorbed, about 1 hour. (Reduce heat as liquid is evaporated or absorbed and stir mixture frequently toward end of cooking to prevent scorching) Discard cinnamon stick. Filling may be made 2 days ahead and cooled before being chilled, covered.

Make topping
Cut butter into ½ inch pieces. In a food processor, pulse butter, flour, and granulated sugar until crumbly. Transfer topping to a bowl and chill, covered, until ready to use.

Make pastry dough when filling and topping are done.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Cut butter into ½ inch pieces. Pulse together pastry ingredients in cleaned food processor, adding a pinch of salt, until mixture begins to gather together.

Press dough evenly onto bottom and sides of 11” tart pan with removable fluted rim. Line shell with foil and bake in middle of oven until shell is set—about 12 minutes. Gently remove foil (if foil sticks to shell, leave foil on and bake about 2 minutes more) and bake until shell edge is golden, about 5 minutes (tart shell will not be completely cooked.)

Immediately spoon filling into shell and crumble topping evenly over filling. Bake tart in middle of oven 30 minutes or until topping is golden. Cool tart in pan on rack. Tart may be made one day ahead and kept, covered and chilled, in pan. Reheat tart, uncovered, if desired or bring to room temperature before serving. Remove side of pan.

Serve with whipped cream or ice cream if desired.

[spinbaby]

11. Bingo!

That looks like what I had at IKEA. Thanks, I'm going to try that before the weekend is out:)

[grasswire]

15. so how did it turn out?

I've been curious!

[spinbaby]

16. I'm going to try it this week (finally)

First I had trouble finding dried apples, then I had a bit of a medical crisis that had me off my feet for six months. I'm finally getting back to normal and have also found dried apples, so it's finally time for apple cake.

[grasswire]

17. hey!

Glad to hear you are feeling better.

So looking forward to hear how this goes.

[Arkansas Granny]

12. That sounds wonderful. I'm going to have to try this soon. Thanks.

[Sentath]

13. Ah Hah! So we do have a reason to dry apples this year

We have about 16 plastic grocery bags 1/2 full of apples covering the pantry floor and out into the kitchen.

[grasswire]

14. here's the link at epicurious

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Dried-Apple-Tart-with-Crisp-Crumble-Topping-15712

The Ikea cake has a vanilla sauce, and this doesn't provide that but can probably be improvised.

[Sentath]

18. Sometime in the last year I baked this...

two of them in fact

VERY rich, but they make non-apple-fans like an apple dessert!

ended up serving it in 1 1/2 inch squares