If Life Gives You Apples...

When I was back home with my parents last week, I resorted back into a child for a bit. No, I didn't have to break out my pair of husky jeans, or my He-Man pajamas, or my old Duck Hunt zapper, but I felt a little different. I've been on my own for the better part of 7 years now, and while that's not too long for many of the readers here, that's still kind of a big deal. It's like between a 1/3 and a 1/4 of my life. (Yeah, yeah, I'm still a kid :)

So what does this have to do with food? Um, maybe absolutely nothing. But... if I can really stretch for something... I would tie being a kid with apples. While I love summer produce and berries, my heart beats apples. All kinds. Gold ones, red ones, green ones, purple, whatever. Maybe it's tied into apple picking and growing up... like that nature/nuture thing I learned in Psy 101 :)

So I really wanted to try something I've never seen before. An Apple roll. I've never done a roll before, but I thought a nice sugary sponge cake, with a fresh applesauce type filling would definately rock... and roll. (Ha I'm terrible) After seeing what happened at super tag team Giz's and Psychgrad's site, I was a little hesitant... but hey this is all about trying stuff out right?

Well here's what happened:

I made my homemade applesauce out of a couple Paula Red apples (first of the year to come out in NY)... a couple tablespoons of sugar, a table spoon of cinnamon, and a dash or two of cloves. I added about 1/4 - 1/2 cup of water, and let it simmer in a pan until they softened up, maybe 15 minutes over medium heat. I then added a few tablespoons of flour to soften it up, and after a few tastes, I was good to go.

I threw together my go to Sponge Cake recipe (very easy), and poped it in the oven (recipe below). I baked it until it was JUST done, and lightly sprang back to the touch. I immediately inverted it, onto a powdered sugar covered towel, and rolled it up. I was pretty proud of myself, and was like... hey this roll thing isn't so hard at all. I must just be a natural. So I let it cool on a cooling rack for an hour... and then I unrolled it.

So far so good... dude I'm awesome.

Oh wait... no... wait a min... no... balls.

Well, after hanging my head for a bit, I realized that this isn't soooo bad. I mean the Jets won this week, and Tom Brady isn't play us next week. Something bad has to happen to me to balance all this out right? Well I'm showing that equilibrium karma thing that he's not going to get to me.

So I give you... Apple Sponge Cake Trifle... because anything looks good with whipped cream and a wine glass :)

Go to Simple Sponge Cake
Recipe by Adam

-1 cup cake flour
-3/4 cup sugar
-1 tsp baking powder
-1/4 tsp salt
-2 eggs, seperated
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1/4 cup milk
-2 Tbsp butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350*. For a cake roll, grease a cookie sheet with cooking spray, line with parchment paper, and sprayed again.

In a large bowl, mix sugar and egg yolks together until thick and yellow. Add the milk, vanilla, and butter until well incorporated. Add in the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, and salt, and mix by hand until well combined.

In a small, clean bowl, beat the two egg whites with a handmixer until semi stiff peaks form. We just want to volumize the egg whites.

Fold the egg whites into the other ingredients gently, and pour into a prepared cookie sheet lined with parchment paper (or whatever type of cooking pan you want to use).

Bake at 350* until desired doneness... for the roll it should be 10-14 minutes. It should look very slightly browned, and spring back to the touch.

For further instructions on how to make a jelly roll, I would look at other websites to see the whole "invert on a kitchen towl and roll up" technique.

See, it's ALMOST a roll... oh well

So that was my awesome weekend. Football... good. Cake roll? Eh, not so much. Somebody else try this out and let me know what you think. If it doesn't work out for you, that's nothing a trifle can't fix. Sponge cake, sweetened apple filling, and whipped cream... ya know life ain't too bad :)