At 10 on Friday night the cake was seven layers high, wrapped in plastic and a clean flour-sack towel, and sitting on the top shelf of the pantry where nobody could reach it until Sunday. Jack asked why we couldn't eat it now. Nora, who is twelve and had helped me stack it, gave him the same answer I'd given her an hour earlier: "Because it isn't cake yet."
Apple stack cake is an old mountain cake from East Tennessee and the rest of Appalachia. Thin, almost cookie-like layers sweetened with sorghum, stacked with a spiced filling of cooked dried apples, then left alone for a day or two while the filling works its way into the layers. Granny June carried one to her church's homecoming every October that I can remember, in a round tin with a dented lid, wedged on the floorboard so it wouldn't slide. The story she told every year was that mountain brides once got their wedding cake one layer at a time, each neighbor bringing a layer, and you could count a bride's friends by the height. Nobody I know can prove it. She told it anyway.
Our church's homecoming was this past Sunday, with dinner on the grounds under the trees and a dessert table as long as a school bus. This year I took one.
Dried apples and sorghum
Both came from the Amish produce stand near Ethridge where we buy tomatoes all summer: a pound of dried apples for $8 and a quart of sorghum, of which this cake uses one cup. Dried apples are the whole point of the filling. Cooked down, they make a thick, dark spread with a deep apple taste, more like apple butter than pie filling.
Why it has to wait
The layers come out of the oven firm, closer to a soft cookie than a cake, and the filling is wet and sweet. Over a day or two, moisture moves out of the apples and into the drier layers until the two even out, and the layers soften into tender cake. Sugar holds onto water, so the filling gives it up slowly instead of all at once, which is why the cake turns soft instead of soggy. The first stack cake I ever made, the fall after Granny died, I cut on day one. The layers were dry and crumbly and the filling slid out of every slice. Two days. Set a reminder if you need one.
Ingredients
- For the filling: 1 pound dried apples, 6 cups water, 1 cup packed brown sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I use White Lily), plus more for rolling
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 cup sorghum syrup
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
How I make it
- Make the filling first, a day ahead if you like. Simmer the apples in the water, covered, stirring now and then, 45 to 60 minutes, until they're very soft and most of the water is absorbed. Mash with a potato masher, stir in the brown sugar and spices and cook 5 minutes more, until it's thick enough to hold a line when you drag a spoon through it. Cool completely.
- Heat the oven to 375°F. Whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and ginger.
- Beat the butter and sugar until creamy, then beat in the sorghum, eggs, buttermilk and vanilla. Add the flour mixture on low until you have a soft dough, like sugar cookie dough. Chill 30 minutes if it's sticky.
- Divide the dough into seven equal pieces, about 6 ounces each. Using a 9-inch cake pan as a guide, pat or roll each one into a round about 1/4 inch thick on parchment.
- Bake two at a time on sheet pans for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are lightly browned and the center springs back when touched. Cool on racks. They'll be firm.
- Stack the layers with about 3/4 cup of filling spread to the edge of each, leaving the top layer bare.
- Wrap tightly and let it rest two days in a cool pantry, or in the refrigerator if your kitchen is warm. Dust the top with powdered sugar before serving.
Granny baked every layer, one at a time, in her 10-inch cast iron skillet. I bake on sheet pans because it takes an hour instead of an afternoon, but I baked the first layer in her skillet anyway, for no reason I need to explain.
Two weeks ago at Shaker Village I had a slice of Shaker lemon pie that made me want to bake something old and slow, and this is about the oldest, slowest thing in the box. My new knife, three weeks old, went through all seven layers clean.
The cake cost about $18 for twenty thin slices, a little under a dollar a slice. At homecoming a woman about Granny's age stopped at the dessert table, counted the layers under her breath and said, "Seven. Somebody taught you right." I took that home with the empty plate.
