Week Thirty-Two: Apple Coffee Cake

(This week’s recipe came from “Good Housekeeping Great Baking”.)

A bittersweet post. This was the last baked good I made in our Columbus kitchen. The last baked good I would take into my co-workers. And yet, not surprisingly, the first post I will write in New Jersey.

Yes, folks, we made the move. Our house is all packed up and in storage in New Jersey and we’re staying with Rob’s dad for a while so we can scope out neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens. We hope to move into a new place by September 1st.

With only two cookbooks and a couple of issues of Cook’s Country left unpacked, my choices are limited until we get our new place and I can unpack the rest of my books. This week I chose an Apple Coffee Cake that used yeast and looked quite pretty on the page.

The recipe started off as a typical yeasted baked good would, only with more sugar in the dough. The dough was kneaded several times and rolled into a ball, which was placed in an oiled bowl and left to rise until doubled in size:

While the dough was rising, two apples were peeled and sliced and then the slices were chopped into small pieces. These were cooked with sugar and butter until the apples were softened. The dough was then spread out onto a cookie sheet:

(Please excuse the disposable cookie sheet – most of my stuff was packed at this point.)

Once the apples had cooled a bit, they were spread out down the middle of the dough, leaving several inches of dough uncovered on either side. I then cut slits one inch apart down the dough and began layering the strips to resemble a braid:

Once the cake was completely layered, it was left to rise again for an hour. Once it was risen, I brushed the cake with egg wash and baked it for 35 minutes. It came out looking pretty good:

I then mixed some powdered sugar and milk together to make a glaze and coated the cake with it:

I didn’t even give this thing a chance to cool down before I cut into it:

Fan-bloody-tastic. This was absolutely amazing. There are several variations on the filling and I want to try a few more of them. My co-workers devoured the rest of the cake pretty quickly. It seemed like a successful way to say goodbye.

This week I’m trying to figure out what to bake. I’m thinking there may be a Lemon Meringue Pie in the future, but I’m still getting used to our new digs and the new kitchen that came with them.