Cinnamon Apple Pie Cake

I realize how confusing this must sound. Is it a pie? Is it a cake?  Make up your mind, RecipeGirl!  It was tough for me to decide, really. In this recipe, a cake batter is poured in and around the apples to hold it all together in the consistency of a cake, but there are so many apples involved that it can officially pass for a pie too. So here you go:  Cinnamon Apple Pie Cake

The recipe is one that I spotted while reading through one of the cookbooks I have on my shelf:  Monday Morning Cooking Club. I’ve now been making it for many years!

Here’s a description from Amazon:
In 2006, a group of Jewish women began meeting every Monday morning. They cooked, ate, drank endless cups of tea and – often heatedly – discussed the merits of different recipes. After just a few weekly meetings, the Monday Morning Cooking Club was born. Five years and hundreds of dishes later, six members of the sisterhood handpicked their favourite recipes to go into their book – the result is a generous, rich and inspiring cookbook featuring the best, most treasured recipes from a culturally diverse community. Each recipe begins with a short story of the cook and their history of the dish, and these stories, interwoven with amazing recipes, take the reader on a heartwarming and delicious journey through a community who finds a deep connection through food and the memory of generations that have gone before.

It’s a rather interesting cookbook indeed. The authors are from Australia, so it’s fascinating to read the stories that go along with the recipes.  Some of the recipes have some out-of-the-ordinary ingredients, so it’s not one that I’d cook from every day… but it’s a great one to buy if you’re a cookbook collector.  Other recipes I’m eager to try:  (there are actually a LOT):  Plumb Cake, Souffle Pancakes, Chocolate Bread and Butter Pudding, Custard Chiffon Cake, Israeli Couscous Soup, South African Cheesecake, Morroccan Fish, Chicken and Barley Soup, Chicken Paprikash, and Challah From Heaven.  There are a lot of neat things included in the book that you don’t typically see here in America.  It’s a great way to get exposed to some new food.

They’re piled and piled until you almost reach the top.

The apples get a sprinkling of cinnamon-sugar.

A cake batter is poured on top of the cinnamon apples.

Let the cake batter drizzle down and around the apples, and give the pan a few taps on the counter to settle it all in there.

The batter gets a generous sprinkling of cinnamon- sugar too.

Take a quick peek into the inside of the pie- cake and you can see my dilemma. It sure looks like a cake, but it’s so full of apples that it can pass for a pie too! I love this recipe. It’s really different than any apple pies or apple cakes I have made before, and it’s always a hit to serve to guests. Interestingly enough, the author of this recipe refers to this as her husband’s “favorite cake” in the introduction to the recipe, but she named the recipe “Cinnamon and Apple Pie.” Clearly, everyone is confused!

Here are a few more apple cake recipes you might enjoy:

• Chopped Apple Cake with Sticky Toffee Topping
• Caramel Apple Upside Down Cake
• Cinnamon Apple Cake
• Apple Topped Cream Cheese Coffee Cake
• Apple Cinnamon Upside Down Cake