Beurre Noisette/Brown Butter Apple Cake

This beurre noisette/brown butter apple cake is the true taste of autmn/fall for me. It’s rich and moist with the crunch of pistachios and hazelnuts and the juiciness of apples too.

Some cakes come about from lots of planning and tweaking, This super tasty apple cake came about completely by accident.

Idgy was home for the weekend and I wanted to bake a cake for her. Actually a chocolate cake. Suffice to say I managed to completely cock-up two different chocolate cakes.

One I was trying to be too clever with the ingredients and it just wouldn’t rise. The other I tried out a silicone mold and the damn thing was welded in like glue.

The cake tasted great when I spooned it out of the fancy mold but it looked like chocolate pudding.

Inspiration for this apple cake

So As I looked around the kitchen at the total chaos I had created with my two aborted chocolate cakes I spoptted an apple.

Idgy had left an apple sitting on the kitchen table. That was it. I’d use the apple, her apple she’d brought home and make it into a cake.

Well, I was clean out of chocolate now so I had to do something!

Beurre Noisette/Brown Butter

What the heck is this I can hear you asking. Well it’s quite simple really. Beurre Noisette (doesn’t the French name sound so much better than ‘brown butter’. Beurre noisette translates as ‘nut butter’.

It gets this name because when you heat up the butter it turns brown and takes on a nutty flavour.

Ingredients

Apple *  butter  * self raising flour  *  ground cinnamon *  ground cardamom *  salt  * Greek yogurt *  milk *  vanilla extract  *  sugar  * eggs

For the frosting/filling and topping

butter *  cream cheese * icing sugar * hazelnuts * pistachios

How to make beurre noisette apple cake

First make that all important beurre noisette/brown butter. All you need to do is melt the butter in a small pan and let it simmer  for about 5 minutes.

It’ll foam and go golden brown in colour. Then you get that gorgeous nutty aroma.

Remove it from the heat and pour into a small bowl. skim off the foam and leave to cool.

Sieve together the dry ingredients.

Mix together the milk, yogurt and vanilla extract.

Beat together the remaining butter with sugar until it’s light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time to the butter mix and half the dry ingredients and half the milk mix. Then add the rest.

The apple bit

Peel the apple saving the peel for later. Finely chop the apple into tiny pieces about 2mm square.

Add the apple to the cake batter and fold it through. Now divide tha batter into two 15cm/6″ baking tins and bake for approximately 35 minutes till golden and risen.

The frosting

I’m using a basic cream cheese butter frosting for my apple cake and adding in some maple syrup for that autumnal flavour that kind of all ties in with the apple and nuts.

Jam

You can’t have to put a layer of jam into your apple cake but I wanted to really make this apple cake sing of autumn and so used my plum and apple jam that I made last week.

Plum and apple Jam

Topping the cake

This buerre noisette/brown butter apple cake is low on the frosting. I have used the frosting inside the cake along with the jam and on the top. The sides have been barely skimmed with the remaining frosting.

Now the topping for this cake is all about autumn. It kind of looks like a mini pile of fallen leaves. I’ve used some crushed hazelnuts and pistachio nuts and toasted them in a dry pan then added sugar to make them into candied nuts.

Candied Apple

The same technique has been used on the apple peel. I used all the peel and snipped it into small pieces about 1mm wide and 1cm long. tossed them into a dry pan and let the heat toast them just a bit. Now throw on some sugar and watch as it melts and clings to the apple peel.

Let the candied apple peel dry out on a piece of baking parchment along with the candied nuts.

Scatter them on top of the apple cake and finish off with the merest whisper of icing sugar like a gentle fall of the lightest snow n an Autumn afternoon just as winter is about to come calling.

How many will this cake serve

You will get either 6 large slices or 8 more modest slices from this cake.

How long does apple cake last

This apple cake will keep for about 3 days under a cake dome. It’s a very moist cake due to the fresh apple so doesn’t dry out quickly.

Can you freeze apple cake?

yes you can but before doing all the frosting stuff. Simply wrap the apple cake well in cling film then pop into freezer bags and label. It will keep for up to 3 months in the freezer. Defrost completely and decorate as above.

Looking for more fun and easy cakes to try? Then check out these recipes before you go;

Rhubarb and ginger cake

Whisky and chocolate marble cake

Coffee and walnut cake with cardamom

Gin and tonic lemon drizzle cake

Finally, if you do try this recipe don’t forget to leave a comment/star rating below as I just love to hear from readers. Want more Larder Love? Then follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter and sign up for my newsletter too of course.