Jewish apple cake recipe: A dairy-free family favorite
To say this Jewish Apple Cake is my favorite food of all time would be one of the least hyperbolic things I’ve ever said. Because it’s true, and really, it’s not even close. I enjoy a lot of foods, but this is the one that wraps up comfort, love, nostalgia and heritage for me in one tidy package — more specifically, an elegant Bundt cake.
The batter is a stir-together affair, made all the more simple by using oil instead of butter, in keeping with Jewish dietary laws, with orange juice also contributing moisture and bright flavor. It’s very similar to the popular Apple and Pear Cake With Citrus and Nuts from my grandfather that I shared last year. Similarly, this cake is tender and fine-crumbed, sharing equal billing with the cinnamony sliced apples arranged in two layers. A final dusting of confectioners’ sugar on the barely crunchy crust seals the deal on a dessert (or breakfast or snack) that never ceases to please.
This recipe is one example of the pantry-friendly cakes my mom made — and still makes — for me, much like her parents did for her. In fall 2020, when we still were limited to short, outdoor visits with each other, she delivered an entire apple cake for my birthday.
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What warms my heart even more is realizing I am not alone in my adoration for this recipe. Turns out, my “family recipe” is many families’ recipe, too.
That recognition hit me with a chill down my spine when I came across a recipe from Joan Nathan’s 1998 book, “Jewish Holiday Kitchen: 250 Recipes From Around the World to Make Your Celebrations Special,” in our archives. It was almost identical to mine, even though Nathan’s sources were in two local Maryland cookbooks: the “Favorite Recipes from Trinity Church” in St. Mary’s City and “Mrs. Kitching’s Smith Island Cookbook” (1981). My mom’s parents lived in New York City and Long Island, nowhere near these places.
The more I looked, the more I found this recipe, or very similar versions. Online, of course, but that’s a given. My grandparents’ recipe predated Nathan’s book by decades, so I dug a little more. The earliest reference in The Post dates to 1970 in Anne’s Reader Exchange, a former long-running feature in which readers offered tips and sent in their various conundrums. “I bought what was called a ‘Jewish Apple Cake’ from a lady at a bake sale in Southern Maryland. I have tried my best to find a recipe, but to no avail. Can anyone help?” Alas, for that unfortunate reader, it takes another 10 years for a recipe to appear in that same feature, labeled “John’s Jewish Apple Cake,” supposedly given to another reader by a retired baker. That one is very similar to mine, with differences in the amounts of orange juice and vegetable oil, primarily.
I came across a passing mention of Jewish apple cake in a 1973 New York Times article as part of a Hanukkah menu, with no actual recipe, though it at least lines up geographically and chronologically with my grandparents. A recipe in “Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family,” first published in 1999, shares a recipe for “Bubbe Rose’s Apple Cake.” It’s baked in a 9-by-13-inch pan, features a streusel topping and separately beats the egg whites, but the broader strokes — the cinnamon-spiked apples, the orange juice, the vegetable oil — indicate a common ancestor.
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That predecessor may be something very similar to my colleague Olga Massov’s Apple Sharlotka, a leaner one-bowl affair from Russia. Nathan and others suspect recipes like my Jewish Apple Cake point back to Eastern European roots. In France, Nathan interviewed a Polish woman who made something similar. So did Nathan’s mother-in-law, though it was simpler. “She was poor,” Nathan says, “she didn’t have a Bundt pan. … Whatever country you migrate to and however much money you have … it’ll change.” Someone else Nathan came across in Chicago made a version with the apples on top. It’s a perfect example of the realization that Nathan has come to: Jewish food, like many cuisines, “changes as much as anything else.”
What won’t change is my lifelong devotion to this cake. I’ve just brought my son into the fold as well. And so it goes on, generation to generation.
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