I could live on apples and bread. If then it were torta di mele (apple cake), which is a glorified form of apples with bread, that would be even better.
To compete with a good British apple, crisp and not too sweet (and yet not too sour either), is hard. However, Italy too produces excellent apples, mainly from Trentino Alto Adige and from Emilia-Romagna, both in the north-east, and it is indeed from Emilia-Romagna (from the renaissance town of Ferrara) that this gorgeous cake emanates.Of all the apple cakes I have tried, this is one of the best: light but not insubstantial, and intensely appley. The recipe comes from what is regarded as one of the bibles on Italian regional cookery, Le ricette regionali italiane, by Anna Gosetti, first published in 1967, a labour of love that was four years in the making.
I suspect this cake is the grandmother of most contemporary Italian apple cakes and it exemplifies beautifully how the best Italian cooking works: few ingredients, almost no techniques and simplicity of approach.
Torta di mele Ferrarese – Ferrara apple cake
6 to 8 portions
26 cm cake tin, with removable base, buttered and lined with parchment
2 eggs
1 kg of apples, peeled and sliced
180 g 00 flour mixed with 1 teaspoon baking powder
A pinch of salt
130 g caster sugar
100 g milk
50 g butter
zest of half a lemon
1 tsp vanilla eXTRACT (my addition)
Whisk the eggs with sugar (minus 2 tablespoons), salt and vanilla until thick.
Add gradually and alternating the flour and the milk.
Add the lemon zest and mix well
Pour batter into cake tin. Arrange the apples on top, stacking them almost vertically (there is a lot of apples here, I know)
Cover the cake with flakes of butter and shower it with the remaining sugar
Bake at 170 C for 55 minutes.
Eat warm. It keeps well for a couple of days
Italian home cooking 
That’s a thing of beauty!
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thanks… I like it because it is one of those desserts: minimum effort/maximum gain
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ciao Stefano, the number of eggs isn’t listed in your version recipe! I have just slid it into the oven and will write with my impressions…but the raw batter was delicious!! 🙂
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thanks – amended. thanks for trying… yes: a huge amount of apples here: I try to stack them almost vertically. thanks for yr observations. stef
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The photo makes it almost look like a yeast cake. Definitely going to try this… The apples this year have been fantastic!
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it is a moist cake, because of the 1 kg of apples… moist crumb… let me know if u try it
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Fabulous cookbook. Recognized it right away… 😉
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yes… every time I open it, I find something I did not know
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This not only sounds wonderful, but it’s beautiful!
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thanks, one of those super easy italian little numbers
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This sounds so good, Stefano!
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thanks.. almost as good as blipping dorset apple cake – my nightmare (when we were in Lyme Regis, EVERY SINGLE VISITOR was asking for this, non really existing cake (as many versions as there are cooks) ) 🙂
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Well, at least you could make it your own! 😉
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