Comfort cakes with apples and lots of cinnamon

At this very moment I’m studying for my last French exam next Friday, alors il faut parler français!Pourtant je continue en anglais. When studying very hard I often get a craving for something sweet... well exams can’t really qualify as an excuse, because I ALWAYS crave for something sweet and delicious. I wanted to make something comfort-like, something from the good old days, so I decided to make the apple-cinnamon cake my mom always makes (and my grandmother used to make). Normally it recalls for apples from one of our apple trees, but it’s not really the season now. She makes the cake in a round cake tin, but I halved the recipe and made it in to 4 small individual cakes. I love them still a bit warm with a nice dullop of sour cream.

You’ll need:

125 g butter, softened

125 g sugar

2 eggs

125 g flour

Filling:

1 big apple, in thin slices

4 tbsp sugar mixed with cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius. Beat the butter and sugar well together and add the eggs one at a time. Fold in the flour. Now butter 4 small cake tins and divide half of the batter into them. Then put a layer of apples and drizzle with the cinnamon-sugar. Put the rest of the batter on top and bake for about 25-30 minutes.

Un petit financier delicieux

I’ve had a thing for financiers for many many years, and I know exactly how I want them. However I’ve not yet come across the recipe yet. Because you find the best financiers in the whole world in a little green bakery on a corner in the heart of Nice in Provence. If I go by I have to taste one...also if I’m on a diet... and I’m looking forward to trying some again in late January when I’m off to Nice.

I served these home invented financiers for New Years Eve and they are quite lovely, though they are far from les financiers niçois.

100 g almonds with their skin on, chopped, roasted in the oven at 150 degrees celsius and

grounded

75 g sugar

2 egg whites

35 g honey

12 g flour

70 g butter, ”made into beurre noisette”

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius. Heat almonds, sugar and egg whites over a bain-marie. Remove from the water and add honey and flour and the butter. Put into tiny financiermolds and bake for 7-10 minutes or until golden.