Apple Almond Cake - for Sunny's Birthday

Come February and celebration of love begins… Newspapers, malls, TVs all hype this festival of love. Even those who find it silly can’t escape coz romance is in the air then. It was Feb 14^th 2008, my second Valentine’s Day after marriage. Just as another normal day, we went to work. Heard each colleague’s plans for the evening. When I was intrigued of what I had lined up for the evening, I indifferently said ‘Each passing day is Valentine’s Day for us, we don’t explicitly celebrate it on 14^th’. But somewhere down the bottom of my heart I too expected that perhaps Abbas would get something for me! Coz it was our first Valentine’s Day together as we were apart the previous year. I eagerly waited for him after reaching home laden with curiosity. My over-confident instincts were telling me that perhaps he was getting late as we buying something for me. The stressed out soul finally came home and got into the bathroom to freshen up. My lower lip popped out of disappointment as though a kid would react having denied something. Well, I quickly consoled myself and decided I would not let him know that I was expecting something. As usual, he started to tell the day’s events. “Seemu, you know Supratik gifted Smitha with the recent Harry Potter book. Smitha was so excited and happy.” I mildly said “Oh” and that was enough for my man to smell something fishy. Next moment he asked me, “Were you expecting that I would get something for you?” I blankly nodded (Never been able to lie to him, have hidden from him, but when confronted can’t manage to lie) The enlightened man said “I have matured from this age of being crazy over Valentine’s Day but I forgot that you are still young, I should’ve thought of it”. Next day a huge Teddy Bear came home as a compensation. We have named it Sunny and we celebrate Sunny’s birthday then on. Might sound insane to some, but yes we religiously observe his arrival on Feb 15^th every year. This time I made this Apple Almond Cake and Ma made Payesh… Cool na?

This recipe is minimally adopted from Divya’s Apple Nut Muffin Cake. Would have followed her recipe to the ‘T’ but due to unavailability of ingredients and urge to have it that day itself led me to modify the recipe as per convenience. The cake turned out super soft and moist and we loved it.

Apple Nut Muffin Cake
Recipe – tweaked from Divya Kudua’s Easy Cooking

Ingredients

Milk - ½ cup
Apple Cider – 1 cup (I used Appy)
Egg - 1, large
Rose extract - 1 tsp (Vanilla extract can be used, I had ran out of it so used rose)
Unsalted butter - 1 stick/8 tbsp/½ cup/100gms, softened
Flour - 1 ¾ cups
Sugar – ¾ cup
Baking powder - 1 tbsp
Baking soda - ½ tsp
Cardamom powder - ½ tsp
Salt - ¼ tsp
Oats - ¾ cup
Almonds - ½ cup,chopped

Method
1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 400 degrees F/200 degrees C. Use an 8-inch square pan, buttered and floured. (I used a flower shaped pan).

2. Whisk together milk, cider, egg, rose extract and butter in small bowl.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, cardamom, oats and salt to combine thoroughly.

4. Switch to a large rubber spatula and stir in the liquid ingredients, stirring just until everything is moistened--as with muffins, less mixing is better than more. Gently stir in the almonds (keep some aside for garnishing the top and scrape the batter into the prepared pan.

5. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the cake is golden brown and a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for a couple of minutes before running a knife around the sides of the pan and unmolding the cake; invert and cool until warm or to room temperature.