Theme: Silky
Cookbook: Gourmet Traveller May 2010
Recipe: Apple and Mascarpone Torta
my new toy
I was very excited about making this recipe. For a couple of reasons. Firstly, I was going to christen my shiny new Kitchen Aid, and secondly, you may want to sit down for this part, I was voluntarily making a sweet dish.
Picked yourself up now? Ready to read on? Yes, she who claims to be completely bereft of skill or desire when it comes to catering for the sweet tooth was looking forward to getting out the scales, weighing the ingredients (hate the precision required of a good pastry chef) and mixing, whipping and blending my little heart out. The dish was chosen by The Beloved who saw it in the latest Italian edition of Gourmet Traveller and said he wanted it. Who I am to deny?
Ingredients
70 gm softened butter
110 gm (½ cup) raw caster sugar
Finely grated rind of 1 lemon
1 egg
90 gm self-raising flour
50 gm (1/3 cup) plain flour
175 ml milk
150 gm mascarpone
Mascarpone filling
350 gm mascarpone
40 gm raw caster sugar
½ egg, lightly beaten
Finely grated rind of 1 lemon
Apple topping
1 small Granny Smith apple, thinly sliced widthways
Juice of ½ lemon
For brushing: melted butter
For scattering: demerara sugar
For dusting: icing sugar
Method
Preheat oven to 170C. Beat butter, caster sugar and lemon rind in your brand spanking new KitchenAid until pale and fluffy (this will take about 2-3 minutes), scrape down sides of bowl and beat in egg. Sift in flours, fold to combine, stir in milk and mascarpone, spoon into a 23cm-diameter springform tin, buttered and dusted with flour, smooth top.
For mascarpone filling, whisk ingredients in your shiny KitchenAid until smooth, then spoon over cake batter and smooth top. Now I thought that putting the mascarpone directly on the uncooked batter was weird and had no idea how it was going to turn out, but I decided to trust the recipe and followed the instructions to the letter.
For apple topping, toss apple slices in lemon juice and arrange, overlapping slightly, on top of mascarpone mix. Brush with melted butter, scatter with demerara sugar, bake until golden and risen (50 minutes-1 hour). Cool in tin for 20 minutes, then run a sharp knife around sides of tin to loosen cake, remove sides of tin, cool cake to room temperature and dust with icing sugar.
Torta will keep stored in an airtight container for 2 days unless you have my family over then there will be nothing but a few crumbs left to keep.
Here’s where I make my confession. The torta? It turned out spectacularly. Seriously. I had no dramas, no mishaps, no anxious moments and it tasted…
Well, it tasted sublime. The mascarpone was so silky and gave such a wondrous mouthfeel that I actually finished a whole piece. The Beloved was most disappointed. He had already scoffed his and was hoping to score the rest of mine! So where’s the problem? Well, in my eagerness to show off the masterpiece that I had just baked to my family (parents, aunt, brothers, sisters-in-law, nephews and niece) who had come over for afternoon tea I committed the food blogger’s cardinal sin and sort of forgot to take a photo. So all I can do is point to the one from Gourmet Traveller (below) and beg you to believe it looked the same. Which it did, nearly. I had so much fun doing this I might have to reconsider the whole sweet thing.
Yay, look at that beautiful, shiny machine!
The torta sounds fantastic – well done doing a sweet dish!
Oh! nice looking kit you got there. I still have my pink mixer from ages. but then again, I do not bake very much
Congratulations! What is your KitchenAid’s name? Mine is “Black Betty”
ooooh that looks wonderful! And yay for kitchen aid mixers – I LOVE LOVE LOVE mine!!!!!
Congratulations on your new KA! May you have many hours of fun with it
I now have white kitchen aid envy, mine is red which I bought a few years back & now that I have renovated red is out of my kitchen, unfortunately with their price tag I think I may be stuck with red for a while. Dont worry I still love it for its supreme mixing powers. Oh and the torta sounds divine too, I wish I wouldnt read these posts when I am feeling so hungry!
im so jealous of your kitchen aid! have always wanted one..
and thats funny you forgot to take a photo, i would’ve made a second one lolz…