Recipe: Connemara apple cake has true Irish roots
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.
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
nice and moist. |
Ingredients:
like a scone. |
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Food in My Back Yard Series
April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers
April 8: When to plant summer vegetables
April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths
March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth
March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space
March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds
March 4: Potatoes from the garden
Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later
Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space
Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants
Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting
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Garden Checklist for week of April 20
Before possible showers at the end of the week, take advantage of all this nice sunshine – and get to work!
* Set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.
* 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.
* Plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.
* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.
* 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.
* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Give shrubs and trees a dose of a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.
* Start thinning fruit that's formed on apple and stone fruit trees -- you'll get larger fruit at harvest (and avoid limb breakage) if some is thinned now. The UC recommendation is to thin fruit when it is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Peaches and nectarines should be thinned to about 6 inches apart; smaller fruit such as plums and pluots can be about 4 inches apart. Apricots can be left at 3 inches apart. Apples and pears should be thinned to one fruit per cluster of flowers, 6 to 8 inches apart.
* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.
* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.
* Weed, weed, weed! Don’t let unwanted plants go to seed.
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