So it's been a while since I made any cakes, but I've been rather busy with other things and quite frankly haven't even had any occasions to bring a cake anywhere. Well now I had, even though quite a vague one. It was my mother's name day (yes we "celebrate" those in Finland) and she asked for a cake.

This cake is again something I whipped up completely from the top of my head. I needed to make something gluten free and these sort of cheesecakes where no oven is even needed is always the easiest solution. I also wanted to try an apple cake since I still had some apples picked from my parents' place.

 

Apple & vanilla cheesecake

Base:

- 1 1/2 dl rolled oats

- 1/2 dl buckwheat flour (or other gluten free flour)

- 2 tbsp sugar

- 1 tsp cinnamon

- 75 g margarine

Melt the margarine and mix it in with all the other ingredients. Press the base in a bottomless ring mold fastened to a plate. Pressing is easier if you wet your hands first. This amount of ingredients will make the base very thin atleast in a larger ring mold like mine. If you wish to have thicker base, double the ingredients or use a smaller mold in diameter.

 

 

Make the apple sauce which is used both in the filling and on the top of the cake. The apple sauce needs to have cooled down before making the filling so it would be good to make it a few hours in advance or even the previous day. The apple sauce stays good probably atleast a few days in the fridge and can be used in many things. It's great on top of for example some nettle or spinach pancakes. You can make a bigger batch and only some of it for the cake. The amount in the recipe is what you need for the cake.

Apple sauce:

- 4 small or 2 large apples

- sugar (amount depends on the acidity of the apples)

- lemon juice or something else acidic

Peel and cut up the apples in small bits and put them in a saucepan. While you're cutting the apples you might want to put some cold water in the saucepan and add some lemon juice or another acid to keep the apples from getting brown.

Once you've cut up all the apples most of the water can be poured out. Only leave a little in the bottom to keep the apples from burning before they soften. Add also some sugar in the saucepan and heat it up. Keep stirring the apples on low heat until they're soft. The amount of time this takes depends on the apples but for me it didn't take more than 5 minutes. You can add more sugar until the apple sauce suits your taste. Blend the soft apples into a smooth paste and let cool.

 

The filling is made in two parts. First there's the apple filling and the vanilla flavoured one on top. Both of the layers are started with the basic cream cheese filling recipe to which you can add pretty much any flavours you want to get variation.

Basic cream cheese filling:

- 2 1/2 dl whipping cream

- 1 dl unflavoured yoghurt

- 200 g cream cheese

Whip the cream and mix the other ingredients until it makes a smooth paste. Divide the paste in half in two different bowls.

 

Apple filling:

- half of the basic filling

- half of the apple sauce

- 1 1/2 tbsp sugar

- 3 gelatine leaves (or 3 tsp gelatine powder)

- water

 

Mix the apple sauce and sugar in the filling bowl. Put the gelatine leaves into a bowl of cold water until they turn soft. Squeeze the excess water out and either heat the gelatine up with a small amount of water or juice in a saucepan, or pour a little boiling water on top of the gelatine leaves and mix until it's completely melted. Pour the liquid gelatine into the apple filling and spread it on the cake base. Let set for atleast atleast an hour or two.

 

If you wish you can make the vanilla filling ready to catch some taste, just don't put the gelatine in yet.

Vanilla filling:

- half of the basic filling

- 1/2 tsp bourbon vanilla

- 3 tbsp powdered sugar

- 3 gelatine leaves (or 3 tsp gelatine powder)

- water

 

Mix the vanilla and powdered sugar in the filling together. Once the apple filling has set add the gelatine and spread the filling on top of the cake. Let set again for atleast one or two hours.

 

Spread the other half of the apple sauce on the cake. You can dye it with some food color or add some water or juice and put some gelatine in it to make another layer. I did not do this since I didn't want to hide the fresh taste of the apple sauce. Take off the ring mold once the top layer is done. You might want to run a knife or a spatula around the edge before removing the mold so that the edges won't stick so much. Oiling the mold from the inside is also a good idea if.

 

Decorate the cake the way you wish. I used some marzipan apples and leaves and dark chocolate. I piped the molten chocolate on top of the cake in the shape of some branches and placed the marzipan decorations all over the tree. I also made a chocolate rim for the cake. Sadly I didn't take pictures so I don't have a tutorial for making of the rim, but I'm sure there are plenty of tutorials in some other blogs.

 

Here's my cake. I managed to make plenty of mistakes in the making of the cake but luckily I managed to hide them quite well. I blame the break from cake making for degenerating my skills.

Omenahyydykekakku - Omenatäyte - Vaniljatäyte - Tuorejuusto - Gluteeniton