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A wee bit of comfort food for St. Patrick's Day

Recipe: Connemara apple cake has true Irish roots

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED MAR 15, 2020

This easy apple cake harkens back to Irish country cooking. Fresh out of the oven,
it resembles a large scone. (Photos: Debbie Arrington)

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, this Irish country recipe offers comfort and a lot of apple flavor.

Connemara apple cake comes from “The Irish Heritage Cookbook” by Mercedes McLoughlin and Marian McSpiritt (Tribeca Books), a 1984 collection of Old Country family recipes collected by the authors and friends in Ireland. This is an adaptation of that heritage recipe.

The result turns out more like a giant (and moist) buttermilk scone than a cake, with lots of big juicy chunks of apple. Unlike most apple cake recipes, there’s no added spice – no cinnamon or nutmeg. So the apple flavor really comes through.

It’s a pleasant Irish twist on a breakfast or coffee cake; of course, it would be fine for tea, too.

Speaking of apples, the last of my fall harvest went into this almost-spring recipe. They had kept crisp after months in the refrigerator. They may not have been the prettiest or the biggest apples, but they worked fine in this cake and still tasted great.

The last of the fall harvest apples still work fine
in the cake.

Here’s another Irish "recipe" adapted from the same heritage cookbook and handed down for generations:

An Irish recipe for happiness

4 cups love

2 cups loyalty

3 cups friendship

Other ingredients to taste

Take love and loyalty and mix thoroughly with faith. Blend with tenderness, kindness and understanding. Add hope, sprinkle abundantly with laughter. Bake mixture with sunshine.

Serve generous helpings daily to your family, friends and all you meet.

(With maybe some Connemarra apple cake on the side.)

Connemara apple cake

Adapted from “The Irish Heritage Cookbook” by Mercedes McLoughlin and Marian McSpiritt
Makes 6 servings

Two cups of chopped apples keep the cake
nice and moist.

Ingredients:

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

¾ cup sugar

6 tablespoons butter

1 cup buttermilk

1 egg, beaten

2 cups peeled and chopped apples (about 2 or 3 apples)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Grease and flour an 8-inch cake tin.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.

Cut the butter into chunks. With a pastry blender or two knives, cut the butter into the flour mixture until crumbly.

Beat the egg into the buttermilk, then gradually add that mixture into the flour mixture until blended. Fold in chopped apples.

Spread the mixture into the prepared pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes, or until lightly golden on top. Let cool a few minutes before removing from pan. Serve warm or cold.

Flipped over, it looks more like a cake and less
like a scone.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

apples baking recipe recipes gardening Sacramento produce management farm to fork Irish food orchard fruit holiday food dessert

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After these storms pass, get to work on spring clean-up.

* Weed, weed, weed! Take advantage of soft soil and pull them before they go to seed.

* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, radishes and squash.

* Plant onion sets.

* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias.

* Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.

* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom. Late April is about the last chance to plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.

* Transplant heat-resistant lettuce seedlings.

* Feed roses and other spring-blooming shrubs.

* April is the last chance to plant citrus trees such as dwarf orange, lemon and kumquat. These trees also look good in landscaping and provide fresh fruit in winter.

* Smell orange blossoms? Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.

* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.

* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.

* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.

* Mulch around plants to conserve moisture and control weeds. Avoid "volcano mulching" -- be sure to keep mulch a few inches away from tree trunks or the stems of shrubs. This prevents rot and disease.

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