Layered ‘Drunken’ Apple Cake or Kuchen Borracho

Drunken Apple Cake (Photo Vanessa Courtier)

Chile is home to a fairly large community of German settlers and their descendants. This Chilean cake, whose Germanic origin is reflected in its name, is out of the ordinary. When it is cut, you see three layers of cake enclosing two bands of creamy apple mixture, which can be gooey or custard-like in places, depending on how the batter and fruit have been distributed. It makes a wonderful pudding served while still warm from the oven and is equally delicious when it cools and sets. This cake will keep at cool room temperature for up to four days. possible. Serve the cake as it is, or with cream, custard or ice cream, as you like.

Oven: preheated to 160°C/320°F

Tin: 24 cm/9” springform tin, well greased and floured (tin height must be at least 7 cm/2 ¾”)

Baking time: about 1½ hours

Peel and core the apples. Cut each apple into 8 parts and slice thinly. Put the sliced apples in a bowl and mix in the sugar and cream. Set aside until needed. Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt and set aside. Beat the butter and sugar until smooth and creamy. Add the beaten egg in four batches, scraping down the sides of the bowl and beating well after each addition. Fold in the flour in four batches, adding the rum and water with the third batch. Gently fold in the last batch of flour and stop mixing as soon as it is incorporated. You will need to divide the batter into three lots. Unless you have a very accurate eye and are very good at averaging these things, weigh them as the layering depends on an even distribution of batter and fruit. Weigh two batches of batter, each 325 g/11 ½ oz, into two bowls. Transfer the batter left in the mixing bowl to the prepared tin. Level the top. Spread one batch of apple mixture evenly on top of this, leaving about 1 cm/½" free around the edge. Add another batch of cake batter and level it. Spread the second batch of apple mixture evenly on top of this and top with the third and final batch of batter. It will be quite a full tin but the batter will not spill out while baking. Level the top and bake for about an hour and a half, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for about 15 to 20 minutes before releasing the clip and transferring the cake to a wire rack to cool completely. From Warm Bread and Honey Cake (Pavilion 2009; Interlink 2010. Translated into Dutch as Zelfgebakken, Kosmos Uitgevers 2011. Photography Vanessa Courtier.)

Layered ‘Drunken’ Apple Cake or Kuchen Borracho

Ingredients

Filling

Cake