In the last 3 weeks my daughter has repeated me a wish: "I want an apple cake!". The lack of time has delayed my duty to comply with my daughter's wish but I couldn't postpone it anymore so this was the day.
I've tried many recipes of apple cakes, that were more fancy and elaborated and this time I wanted the most simplest (and delicious) as possible.
As I was also having some guests, the cake should also have been big enough for all of us. I then took the biggest pan I have found, removed the handle so it could fit in the oven and started to prepare it. My daughter was helping me with the mix of ingredients and I was preparing the apples. With four hands, the cake was prepared in almost no time.
Then we cooked it, let it cool and reversed it on a big plate.
When I first saw it reversed I didn't dare to put the knife in it. It was like a huge sweet flower in the middle of my kitchen table. Clearly the cutting moment had arrived and I was wondering if there would remain at least one piece to make a photo of it. So, I had to sneak and make a photo while it was not yet finished.
It arrived that my daughter loved the cake so much that she asked a piece of it every day at school. For me and my husband, we had only enjoyed one small piece as the rest was gone or reserved :).

This is that kind of recipe that you might end up doing it over and over again and learn the recipe by heart as it is simple and extremely tasty.

Serve it with some whipped cream and it becomes a madness.

I made this recipe dozens of times and I feel like doing it over and over again. I tried different versions of it but finally I stayed to this one. It grows perfectly every time, both in the wood fired oven and in a conventional oven. I also used baking pans when I wanted a perfectly squared shape to use for example for sandwiches. Every time, this recipe didn't let me down.
The most impressive part of this bread is the taste and its texture. When eating a bite feels like traveling back in time, a hundred years ago, to a dinner in the country side.

I find this recipe also to be very flexible. I prefer the option to make the first fermentation overnight. When it is not very cold, I let the dough outside the house in a closed bowl. If there is freezing outside, I put the dough it in the pantry where I have a constant temperature of 10-11ºC in the cold winter days.

I usually prepare the dough on Saturday evening, and on the next morning when I wake up, I check how much it has raised. Also the initial temperature of the ingredients plays a little role in how raised the dough is and not only the temperature during the night.

After the final fermentation, I arrive to bake this bread as early as 12 PM the next day or even later at 5pm. It mainly depends on the room temperature where the dough is let to raise. This also gives you flexibility in your day schedule so you can fit the bread making into your life not the opposite.