Getting over your fear of fat: Apple Coffee Cake

Food Network has been featuring Emeril's Apple Coffee Cake all week for Mother's Day, and it looked so good that I finally decided to bake some for Sunday for my mom and aunties (and roommates). The recipe has gotten such rave reviews and doesn't require any outlandish ingredients, so it's perfect. I'm not going to post the recipe since I followed the directions practically to a T, with the exception of using 3 apples (4 cups, twice what is used in the recipe). You can find it here if you like.

Cooking really requires you to conquer any aversions to fat. Savory foods, including healthy vegetables, almost always require you to start off with a tablespoon or two of olive oil in the pan. Cookies and cakes require lots of butter and sugar and more butter, followed by more sugar. Vinaigrettes for your salad? Half vinegar, half oil. Butter poaching? Pretty self explanatory. But foods with fat taste good. I bet in any cooking competition where chefs go head to head, the one who delivers the winning dish uses more fat than his or her competitors. OK for me, I can suck it up and add that butter.


All you guys are going in. Is that an entire box of brown sugar? Why yes, yes it is.

I used 3 types of apples which are good for baking: 1 Granny Smith, a green, firm, and tart apple; 1 Golden Delicious, a yellow, sweet variety; and 1 Braeburn, a red-orange-greenish apple that's sweet and very juicy. A good mix of sweet and tart. For reference, the following apples are good for baking, ie able to hold up to increased temperatures instead of breaking down and getting mushy and gross:
Jonagold, Granny Smith, Pippin, Gala, Braeburn, Northern Spy, Gravenstein, Rhode Island Greening, York Imperial, Cortland, Winesap, Golden Delicious, Pink Lady
Good rule of thumb, the red apples are usually meant for eating fresh, like your McIntosh or Gala apple - so if in doubt, stick towards the green/yellow varieties like the Granny Smith and Golden Delicious.


From left to right: Granny, Braeburn, Golden Delicious. Unfortunately I cut the Granny before thinking to take this picture.

I cut the apples into relatively small pieces, but big enough that the person eating can get some good chunks of apple in there. To keep the apples from browning, I put them in a bowl of ice water with a squeezed lemon wedge (~1tsp worth).



Pour the batter into the pan, sprinkle on the struesel topping, bake, and then drizzle with brown sugar glaze.



These are incredibly moist. If you like a lot of apple in your bite, do as I did and use 3 apples. If you want a little more cake, just use 2 apples and it should still be plenty.




Happy Mother's Day!