Apple-Walnut Mosaic Cake

When I first read this recipe from the book, "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas, I asked myself these questions...

Mosaic? This must be a pretty cake...
Is there too much apples in this cake?
Can the small amount of batter strong enough to hold all the mosaic ingredients?

I'm baking this Apple-Walnut Mosaic Cake for The Home Bakers and this is the twelfth bake for this event. THB is an baking event organised by my friend, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours. With a group of gorgeous ladies, we are baking all recipes from the book, "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas until every recipe has been baked from this book.

Prior this bake, Mich from Piece of Cake and I had a brief conversation about baking this cake when we met in Singapore. Mich warned me the crumbling nature of this cake and advised me to bake mine in smaller versions for easy handling. I should listen to Mich baking my cake in muffin tins. Instead, I'm curious and wish to seek for a nice mosaic design in every slices of my cake. And so, here I am compromising the situation by taking a risk to bake my cake in a 10 cm x 20 cm loaf pan.

Based on the recipe, this cake is baked with a little amount of stiff batter and I can smell that the top of my cake was beginning to "cook" fast in the first 15 min of baking. And, so I covered the cake loosely with aluminum foil and bake it for 30 min to cook the apples thoroughly without burning the surface of the cake. The foil was then removed and the cake was baked for another 20 min to achieve a rich brown colour. 

I felt relieve seeing that my cake came off my loaf pan to be perfectly well-intact. I must admit that slicing this fragile cake can be pretty tacky and have managed to slice them into five thick slices. Generally, I am happy with its look, taste and texture. Taste-wise, I can't really tell if there is any difference with or without the use of walnut oil baking this cake and all I can tell is that the oil does create a light and smooth batter. 

Overall, I reckon this cake doesn't seem like a typical cake. It is NOT soft, fluffy, buttery or smooth at all. Having so much apples and cranberries in its single bite, this apple-pie-like cake is quite an unique, wholesome and delightful one to enjoy. 

I'm happy to see this lovely mosaic design in my cake.

Ingredients that create the lovely mosaic design in this cake

Making the cake... with my retro whisk :D

Baking the cake

Crumbling texture! Lucky that my cake survived and relieved to see a nice mosaic design :)

Being the rule of this event, only the host of the chosen bake can post the recipe in her blog post. Please visit Mich from Piece of Cake for the detailed recipe of this bake.

And, here are the notes and modifications that I made for my bake.

My ingredients list (which is half amount of the original recipe)

70g whole walnuts (not chopped), lightly roasted for 8 min at 160°C fan forced
75g whole wheat flour
75g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 large egg
90g light brown sugar
1/3 cup walnut oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 small Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced (about 3 cups)
3/4 cup dried cranberries

Using this amount of ingredients of the above recipe, I've baked the cake using 10cm x 20cm loaf pan at 160°C fan forced for a total of 1 hr 5 min.

The total baking time consists of :

• 15 min first to bake the outer layer of the cake
• Cover the cake loosely with aluminum foil (with holes) and bake for 30 min - this step is to cook the apples without burning the surface of the cake.
• Remove the foil and bake again for another 20 min to achieve a rich brown colour - The juice released from the cooked apples will moisten the cake batter and the sugar released will help to caramelize the cake batter into a nice and rich brown colour.

Modifications that I have made from the original:

• I have used walnut instead of pecan.
• I have also used all walnut oil instead of canola oil or half walnut oil with half canola oil.
• I have replaced the baking soda with baking powder.
• I have omitted ground allspice and the use of icing sugar for dusting. 
• I have reduced the brown sugar amount from 3/4 cup to 1/2 cup for half of the amount.

Happy Baking

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