French Apple Cake

It’s been an incredibly busy September as I’ve been flying all over the country for hematology-oncology fellowship interviews!

I like traveling, but I like traveling AT my destination, not TO and FROM. Almost all of my flights are just 24 hour trips, and I’ve been gone for up to a week at a time traveling from city to city for all my interviews.

I finished most of my interviews and have a few left, which I’m looking forward to completing. I’m fairly outgoing, but interviews still take a lot of energy out of me.

Interviewing while working as a resident or hospitalist for fellowships is not nearly as fun as when you’re interviewing as a medical student for residency – I recall the days where you got 2 months off just for interviews. Fourth year of medical school was like a vacation.

Now it’s work a night shift and go directly to the airport, or interview all day, fly back, then go directly to the hospital to work.

A nice perk has been seeing a lot of old friends from elementary/high school to college up to medical school to residency. Once you’re out of training, it’s much harder to meet people and make new friends (especially if you only work nights in a new city)

 B and I had one nice weekend together and these apples are also from our Linvilla orchard picking. This French Apple Cake is adapted from Once Upon a Chef and pretty easy to make.

My only regret is not adding enough apples – I had cut back since I though I had cut too many and I realized I didn’t have enough. Next time – use 2 apples, not 1!

French Apple Cake

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon almond extract
2 small baking apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
Confectioners’ sugar, for decorating cake

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 6-inch springform or regular cake pan with butter or nonstick cooking spray.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. With an eggbeater, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs, vanilla and almond extract. Add the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the chopped apples.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and even the top. Bake for about 50 minutes, or until the cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean (may need to put foil on top to prevent the top from browning too much). Allow the cake to cool on a rack.

Remove the cake and using a fine sieve, dust with confectioners’ sugar. Cake can be served warm or room temperature.