Kitchen Class with Xyra

In the Kitchen with Lanie and Xyra

Recipe of the ____ (Day, Week, Month, Year)

Pennsylvania Dutch AP Cake

Hi! AP (Apeas or Apey) Cake is a wonderful Pennsylvania Dutch tradition. Now most people eat it at breakfast like a coffee cake, but in the past it was also served as dessert. 

If you were to search for a recipe online you'd find a whole bunch. Some with egg, others without. Some with white sugar in the batter and some with white sugar sprinkled on top. I think I even saw one that added vanilla. 

Ours is very basic - nothing fancy at all, but very delicious! Just flour, brown sugar, baking soda, butter, and buttermilk (or sour milk).

It's really awesome with fresh churned butter and buttermilk. Fresh buttermilk is not thick or sour like you get at the grocery store.

You want your butter to be soft or at least room temperature. Then add the flour.

Brown sugar and baking soda.

Now use a pastry blender to combine the dry ingredients with the butter until you get crumbs.

Like this. 

I use the long handled blender, but was taking a little too long, so Xyra stepped in with hers.

Now add the milk.

This is the really fun part. you have to combine the milk and flour mixture until you get a dough. I suppose you could use a dough hook on a mixer, but we dig right in and mix with our hands. (Scrubbed them first, of course.)

Your dough will look like this. So why is the mixing the best part? Some of the batter stays on your fingers and you can lick it off - no raw items in the batter. My favorite part.

Then you split the batter or dough into two balls and place them in each in a pie tine and pop them in the oven.

Set the timer and wait.

(Time passes)

Ohhhh, it smells delicious!

Make sure it is done by inserting a skewer (metal or wood works) in the center. If it comes out clean, it's done. Put the tins on a rack to cool. Can be served warm or cold.

This is a slice of the done AP Cake. 

Very tasty with milk and tea. I've heard it is good with coffee too. Some people dunk it.

Xyra Note

As mentioned above I was testing our oven - the bottom heating element was not working and these cakes did not look as lovely as they should have. So no full picture of the done cake. Usually the finished cakes are a nice golden brown with a lovely hard outer crust and dense cake inside. You can make the cakes in all sizes from the 3 or 4 inch tart pans up to 9 or 10 inches. Just watch your time and adjust as needed.

Does this sound like something you'd like to try?

Best wishes,