I’m passionate about apple cake, so when my Instagram friend Dee, boasted that her apple cake was the BEST ever, you can bet that got my attention. Of course, I had to go over to her blog and check it out. I had a sneaky feeling I knew exactly which recipe she used, and I was right. The recipe came from her mother-in-law, who got it from the Second Helpings Please! Cookbook. Every Jewish mother, worth her salt, cooked from this book in the 1970’s. I don’t recall my mom using this book though. We ate mostly frozen foods in the 70’s.
I first learned about this apple cake at one of my very first professional cooking jobs. I was working in an upscale take-out food shop in Toronto’s Yorkville area called Dinah’s Cupboard. I learned so much from Dinah Koo, the shop’s owner. She demanded perfection and precision. She cooked with big flavours and was a master at presentation. I am forever grateful to her for teaching me so much. It was my job to make 4 of these cakes every day. We baked them in 9×13 inch rectangular cake pans and cut the cakes into large squares to sell in the shop.
Dinah’s twist on the Second Helpings classic was to soak the just baked cake in a caramel sauce. How bad could that be? As soon as it comes out of the oven, poke holes all over the cake and pour on caramel sauce so it has an opportunity to soak in. This is a moist, dense, intensely flavourful cake. Because I’m fancy, I baked mine in a Bundt pan with 2 layers of apples sandwiched between 3 layers of batter. Watch how it all comes together.
Cindy! This one hits it out of the ball park! It looks so beautiful. I’m definitely going to make it. Great photos and video too!
Thanks Lynnie. You have had this cake every year at our Rosh Hashanah lunch! Let me know how yours turns out. We will miss you this year.
xoxoxo
Looks so delicious and beautiful photography and styling! Remember the frozen cake we used to eat from the TV dinners and the frozen Sarah Lee cakes that someone used to peel and eat the icing off of and just leave the cake in the freezer:). Xoxo
Thanks Faith! I never did that with the Sarah Lee Cakes. 😉 Must have been just you.
xoxoxo
The cake looks amazing and it is as great in taste as it looks Your photography is magnificent ,I make this wonderful cake very often thanks to you giving me the recipe when you worked for Dinah Koo Who ever said mother’s can’t learrn from their daughters No more frozen cakes for me xoxo
Thanks Mom! But, nothing wrong with some frozen cake every once in a while! xoxoxo
I love that you have a good story to go with the recipes you show us here, Cindy! You’re really lucky you’re an ocean away from me because if we lived in the same area I would invite myself over to join you in your baking adventures 😀 . It looks like so much fun but I could never find the motivation to do all this by myself.
Thanks Kiki. I think I was born to be a storyteller. I would love to have you here to help me out. I always need a second pair of hands when I’m doing my photo shoots. It has taken me a while to find my life’s passion, but now I can’t imagine doing anything else. I get such joy from baking, styling, writing and photography.
I love this cake and this recipe which I’ve also been using for years. However the addition of the caramel sauce will definitely be added from now on. It’s so amazingly yummy.
Thanks Shelli! I have tried the caramel sauce using parve margarine instead of butter and non dairy creamer instead of cream. It was pretty good.
I can only imagine the difficulty in removIng this cake from the Bundt Pan if some of the caramel were to run down the side of the Pan when pouring it on top of a wan Cake. So I understand the caramel ends up on the bottom of the cake. Does the caramel not harden and if it doesn’t, does it not make a sticky mess when slicing and serving? Especially on a wooden pedestal such as the beautiful one you are using which can’t be easily washed?
Hi Diane. The caramel sauce is not cooked for that long before it is poured onto the cake, so it does not really harden like caramel that is cooked to 250°F. The cream, butter and brown sugar are just briefly heated and mixed until smooth. Because it is a thin sauce and you are pouring it into the holes you have poked, while the cake is still warm, the sauce gets absorbed into all levels of the cake. It does not sink to the bottom. I greased my Bundt pan well with shortening and then sprayed it with Pam, and it released just fine. Once the cake cools, everything becomes firm and there is no mess. I did not put it on the wooden cake plate until it was totally cool. No issues cleaning up.
I loved this cake and often picked it up at dinahs cupboard, along with some of the best samosa! Thank you for sharing this recipe. It was the best.
Thanks Sharon! You must also be of a certain age if you can remember this cake!!😉 Thanks for leaving me a comment!
I used to buy a slice of the Caramel Apple Cake at least three time a week or more!
to have with Dinah’s Cupboard ‘s excellent Coffee, when I worked at Sheilah’s and also at Ridpath’s, as it was “always on my way” (from the Sutton Place Apartments
where I was living, near Bloor and Bay.
I lost my Dinah’s Cupboard Cook Book, in a fire, and found a replacement in mint condition, online from Amazon US, >via Wonder Books and Video. Some old favourites in there also, (it just arrived this morning).
You get nostalgic for the Toronto of the 70’s and 80’s great food we used to have — in the OLDEN DAYS! (i’m vintage 1947).
Lorraine Gunn
Wow Lorraine, you were a big fan of that cake! So lovely of you to leave me a comment. My favourite recipes from the book and my time working in her kitchen have to be the baked brie in wine pastry and the spaghetti with sundried tomatoes and pine nuts. They are forever classics.