1000-Layer Invisible Apple Cake

This thousand-layer apple cake, also known as an invisible apple cake, is absolutely packed with thinly sliced apples right to the brim with a nice custardy soft texture and crispy on the outside. It's almost like a sweet apple terrine. It's delicious and here's everything you need. We'll begin this recipe by peeling six to eight apples. These can be any apples that you like to eat. They have to be nice and sweet, crisp, with a slight tartness. So something like Pink Lady apples, which is what I'm using, or Granny Smith apples are absolutely perfect for this recipe. Peel all the apples then cut them in half and remove the core. Next we're going to thinly slice them. You can do this on a mandolin because we need them really thin, roughly around one to two millimeters in thickness. If you are using a mandolin just be extra careful, they are super sharp. Just take your time and work your way through them carefully. It's a piece of cake that I definitely do recommend getting because you can get really uniform slices that you can't always achieve with a knife. If you don't have a mandolin that's fine, you can slice them with a knife. Next place the sliced apples into a mixing bowl and then we're going to add the zest of one orange, followed by the juice from the orange. Now the zest adds the main punch of flavor. The juice does two things, it marinates the apples and adds flavor, but also the acid in the juice help prevent the apples from discoloring. Now make sure you get right in there and mix it until all of those apples are completely coated. We can now place the apples to one side and we'll move on to making the batter. In a bowl whisk together two eggs and 70 grams of caster sugar until pale and the sugar has completely dissolved. Then add in 30 grams of melted butter, 120 milliliters of milk, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste, half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and a quarter teaspoon of ground nutmeg, and whisk together until smooth. Then place in 75 grams of plain or all-purpose flour and whisk until just combined. The batter will be thin, not like a normal cake batter, but don't worry about that, that's exactly how it's supposed to be. So next we're going to pour this batter over the apples and then mix it thoroughly until all the apples are completely coated. I've got a loaf tin here that I have lined with parchment paper, I've done one strip going that way and then one long strip going that way, and I've left a little bit of overhang at the ends just so when it's baked we can lift it out nice and easily. And all we have to do is place these apples into this tin and make sure they're in nice and compact. There's two ways you can do it, one of them is to just put them in and press it down just randomly just tip them in, or you can take your time and do them slice by slice, it really does depend how much time you've got on your hands. You will get better results if you take your time and do a slice by slice. And then if there's any batter left in your bowl make sure to pour that over the top. And once you've managed to pack all of your apples into a loaf tin we can place it into a preheated oven at 170 degrees Celsius for around one hour. After around 40 to 45 minutes keep an eye on it, if you feel it's browning too quickly you can cover it loosely with some foil to stop it browning any further. And once it's baked you should have something that looks like this. It'll be nicely caramelized on the surface and puffed up and raised up a little bit. It will sink back down so don't worry about that when it happens, it's supposed to do that. It just kind of souffles up a little bit as it's baking and then it'll compress and go back down. Leave it to cool for 15 minutes before brushing the top with some warm apricot jam. This adds a beautiful shine and just finishes the cake perfectly. Now leave the cake to cool completely before removing from the tin and cutting your first slice. Serve warm or at room temperature and finish with a little dusting of icing sugar. Mmm that tastes so good, the texture is really soft, really delicious. So that's how you make a thousand layer apple cake. It's definitely worth making. I hope you enjoyed the video, thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.