Not Apple Pie. Not Honey Cake, Either.

When I am not in Wellfleet, I spend a lot of time on the bench in my local dog park in Brooklyn, kibbitzing. Occasionally, an idea for an outing — with dogs, of course — emerges from the chatter. Last week, the people of the dog park made a plan to go apple picking at a dog-friendly spot about an hour outside the city. Having only just arrived in New York from the Cape with a car full of stuff, I was not in the mood to budge. Besides, when I am in the city, I tend to spurn the natural world. I mean, what can possibly hold a candle to the nature on the Outer Cape?

“But do bring me some apples,” I said.

My kind friends obliged and brought me a lovely mixed bag of Honeycrisps and Fujis and Winesaps, all small and tart and crisp. I find small things like this reassuring these days: apples as apples used to be.

The dog park people told me they had a pie bake-off in the works, and apparently non-pickers were not barred from competition. I was conflicted, my competitive bones at war with my desire to sit out the whole pie thing and make applesauce, which I love (chunky, with skins and no added sugar, though these early fall apples might need just a little).

In the days that followed the apple excursion, the idea of the pie-off expanded to encompass talk of a whole apple-centric dinner. We are ambitious, at least in conversation. While the dogs wrestled in the shifting September light, oblivious, we discussed the merits of pork chops and applesauce versus pork roast and apples — a great way to pass the time, with the added bonus that culinary conversation mercifully obscures most of the controversies that occasionally waft across the park (who stole the prize ball or who, whether dogs or humans, got aggressive first).

Someone wanted to add hot peppers to the apples and pork, and that made me think about how some heat would be nice in that classic combination. It also made me count up the Wednesdays I’d be missing before getting back to the Wellfleet Farmers Market for Cape-grown pork.

All the talk about apples also got me thinking about Rosh Hashanah and apples and honey and honey cake, and how I love the way they symbolize the desire for a sweet new year. It’s hard to imagine how we get from where we are now to sweetness, but symbolism is good.

Would a honey cake cut it in a pie-off? I wondered. Likely not. But I decided to wade in with a non-pie anyway because, frankly, I am scared of pie crust. I can fake my way through it, of course, using the Indie’s recipe by Katherine Alford, which calls for a little bit of vodka instead of water — the alcohol evaporates in the oven and leaves a lovely flaky crust behind.

I looked at a fantastic David Lebovitz recipe for a classic Tarte Normande, which is eggy and creamy and has a rich crust that gets pressed into the pan rather than rolled out. A sure win (unless I were to get eliminated on technical grounds). I was about to plunge in when I decided to cross reference and pulled from the bookshelf one of my old faithful cookbooks, Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table.

I browsed the index to see what she had going in the apple category. Alas, no Tarte Normande, but I was intrigued by something named after Greenspan’s friend Marie-Hélène. It’s not a pie, and it’s not even a tart, but I liked the fact that the recipe used melted butter because I figured I could therefore sneak in a little bit of honey as a nod to Rosh Hashanah without affecting the structural integrity of the thing. (I take food scientist Harold McGee seriously.) And anyway, I didn’t have on hand the heavy cream that Lebovitz’s recipe required.

Greenspan’s recipe called for rum, which I also didn’t have, but the liquor store is dog-friendly — indeed, it’s dog-positive, which is to say they give out biscuits. We stopped in. I walked right past the rum, though, and went for Calvados, because Lebovitz’s recipe had put it in mind, and besides, a brandy made of apples seemed too exactly on point to ignore. Fingers crossed for the win.

NOT-APPLE-PIE-NOT-HONEY-CAKE-EITHER
Makes enough to bake in one 8-inch springform pan

½ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup rice flour
¾ tsp. baking powder
Pinch of salt
2 large eggs
½ cup sugar
¾ cup dark brown sugar
3 Tbsp. Calvados
1 Tbsp. honey
4 large or 5 small apples, mixed varieties
8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1. Preheat oven to 350° Butter an 8-inch springform pan and line it with a circle of buttered parchment paper.
2. Whisk the flours, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl. In a large bowl, beat the eggs with a whisk until foamy, then add the sugars, the Calvados, and the honey.
3. Peel and core the apples, cut them into 1-inch chunks, and set aside. Melt the butter and let it cool slightly.
4. Whisk half the flour mixture into the egg and sugar mixture, then add about half of the melted butter followed by the rest of the flour mixture and the remaining butter, stirring gently so as not to overmix. The batter should be smooth, and it will be thick.
5. Fold in the apples, so that they’re coated with the batter, then scrape the mixture into the pan. Try to get the top pretty even with a rubber spatula. The springform pan sometimes lets out a bit of butter, so it’s a good idea to put the pan on a baking sheet before you put it in the oven.
6. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until the top of the cake is golden brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean; the cake may pull away from the sides of the pan.
7. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and let it cool for five minutes before running a knife around its edge. Then let the thing cool completely before removing the sides of the pan to serve. Whipped cream or ice cream would not be out of place here.