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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Garden Checklist for week of May 5
Survey your garden after the May 4 rainstorm. Heavy rain and gusty winds can break the neck of large flowers such as roses. Also:
* Keep an eye on new transplants or seedlings; they could take a pounding from the rain.
* Watch out for powdery mildew. Warmth following moist conditions can cause this fungal disease to “bloom,” too. If you see a leaf that looks like it’s dusted with powdered sugar, snip it off.
* After the storm, start setting out tomato transplants, but wait on the peppers and eggplants (they want warmer nights). Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.
* 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.
* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.
* Mulch around plants to conserve moisture and control weeds.
* 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.
* Don’t wait; plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.
* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.
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