Appalachia is known for its Apple Stack Cake, but I never even tasted one until I assisted in a cooking class at the folk school several years ago. After my first taste of the cake I fully understood what everyone was so crazy about. The cake is delicious.
I think of Apple Stack Cake as the fanciest of traditional Appalachian cakes. It’s not terribly difficult to make, but it is time consuming.
My favorite recipe for the cake comes from “More than Moonshine: Appalachian Recipes and Recollections” by Sidney Saylor Farr. The recipe was the one Farr’s mother used. According to the book you can use fresh apples to make the cake, but I prefer using dried apples because they impart such a richer taste to the cake.
Apple Stack Cake
Part 1: the cake
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 egg beaten
- 1/3 cup sorghum syrup
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 3 1/2 cup plain flour (all purpose)
- 1/2 teaspoon soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ginger
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Cream together sugar and shortening.
Add egg, sorghum, and buttermilk, mix well.
Sift together flour, soda, salt, and ginger.
Ms. Farr says to make a hole in the center of the dry ingredients; add the creamed mixture; and stir until blended.
Since I use a mixer, I add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture a little at a time until the mixture is blended. Add vanilla and mix till the consistency is like a soft cookie dough.
You’ll need to add additional flour as you roll out the dough to make the layers. The layers need to be the size of a 9 inch pan. I shape the dough into a loaf shape and divide it into equal portions. The recipe says it will make seven layers, but sometimes I end up with eight 🙂
Using the bottom of my 9 inch cake pan for a template, I draw a circle on a piece of parchment paper. Using the circle as a guide: I roll the dough out to slightly larger than the circle; lay the 9 inch cake pan on the dough and cut around the edges. I add the excess dough I cut off to the next portion of dough.
Bake the layers at 350 for 10 to 12 minutes or until light brown.
Once the layers are baked set them aside to cool.
Part 2: Apple filling
- 1 pound of dried apples (that’s about 14 cups of dried apples)
- water
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon allspice
Put apples in a pot with water and cook; keep a fairly close eye on the apples as you may have to add additional water while they cook. Once apples are soft enough to mash, add the other ingredients and mix well.
Part 3: Assembly
Place a cake layer on a cake plate and spread with apple filling. Repeat until you reach the last layer.
Whether you put apple filling on the top layer is up to you. Many cooks put apple filling all over the outside of the cake like you would any other icing.
The cake needs to sit overnight before its ready to eat. This allow the apples to fully soak into the cake layers.
Part 4: Custard Sauce
- 4 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 cups half-n-half
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- pinch of salt
Custard sauce is not part of the traditional apple stack cake recipe, however in my opinion it makes a good thing an even better thing.
To make the sauce: beat yolks in a metal bowl that will fit over a saucepan in the manner of a double boiler. As you beat the yolks, add sugar a little at a time.
Once sugar is added, increase the mixer speed scraping bowl as needed and beat until mixture is thick and lemon colored.
Add half-n-half and mix well. Move bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Cook custard over water stirring often until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add vanilla and salt. Remove from heat and cool in frig or by immersing in a bowl of ice water.
This is a thin custard, which makes it perfect for pouring over a piece of cake.
Part 5: EAT
After the apple stack cake has sit over night slice a piece and drizzle custard over it or under it or don’t drizzle custard over it or under it at all and eat!
Tipper
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An old fashioned stack cake was made by my mother every year as our Christmas “fruitcake”. She would make it about a week before and store it in a cool place to allow the gingerbread type layers to absorb the cooked dried apples and it would be very moist. I loved the smell of the kitchen that day. I have made the stack cake in recent years to share with friends who had never heard of it. I like to add apple butter in with my cooked dried apples to give it a spicier taste. Thank you for sharing your recipe. Instead of rolling out the dough we would just press the dough into the pan. In doing so the tops weren’t exactly even on top and the little hollows would hold the filling well. I loved my mother’s because she made hers in an iron skillet.
I would love to have the download of your recipes. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents when I was too young to stay alone while my parents worked. I went with my Grandma to milk the cow twice a day. I “helped” with making butter and cottage cheese, as well as cooking meals. I was fascinated once when she made biscuit dough and spread it on top of a big pot of green beans, covered it with a lid and made steamed bread — pale on the outside but a delicious biscuit inside.
Grandma could read very little (maybe not at all) and could barely sign her name, but she was a skilled cook and talented homemaker.
For a neighbor’s baby shower, I saw her knit a beautiful pair of baby booties without a pattern of any kind. it was just “in her head”. When I was older and learned to knit, I realized what an amazing talent she had.
I’m sure the recipes in your cookbook will bring back sweet memories of summers with Grandma.
First, thanks for your beautiful blog and YouTube videos. I love them!
I just made my first apple stack cake – I used my granny’s recipe with a few differences. I mostly used nutmeg and cinnamon. I’m not a huge fan of allspice, so I left it out. I plan on using these techniques (and this recipe) on my next one. Mine turned out a little dry but I was pleased that it actually turned into a cake. It’s even got some leaky eyes because it has been so long since I had experienced the sights and scents of this wonderful cake. It made me feel like granny was here with me.
In your video, you talked about how people used to dry the apples in the windshield of a car. Granny and Papaw used to dry them on a towel in front and back windshields of their old Monte Carlo. That made me smile. I wasn’t that industrious – I bought dried apples from one of the local Mennonite stores.
Anyway, thanks again!
JP
Greeneville, TN
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John-Thank you! So glad you enjoy our videos! I’m so glad you make the cake in honor of your granny 🙂
You might not remember, but Granny would also make that dough and make little cookies out of it. She used to call them her little sweet cookies. She used her old snuff jars to cut the cookies, and they were like a little biscuit…… And they were always best right after they came out of the oven. And, granny made what she called her “fruit cake” with the thin layers, seven or eight layers high, too. I remember she used to do dried apples, and now it makes me wonder if her fruit cakes were made with the dried apples. I don’t remember ever eating one of the applesauce cakes that you described.
Dwayne-I so wish I had paid more attention and spent more time with Granny Gazzie. So many things I wish I could have asked her about. I do make her gingerbread recipe every Christmas so thank you for telling me about how she used the snuff jars I’ll definitely do that this year. I hope you are well! Love you cuz.
Just recently took a trip to north Ga. Blairsville and Hiawassee to be exact ..no sorghum syrup to be found.
I was told that this past fall was the 3rd year in a row that the sorghum cane did no produce well.
best sorghum can be found out of Mennifee County Kentucky ! That’s where we get it from even though we live in Ohio now at a little farm market in Blue Ball right outside Middletown Ohio.
My “Grandma-on-the-Mountain-Road” put so much love into her Apple stack cakes! I can picture her clear as can be, wrapped in her feed sack apron and crowned by snow white hair. I love the warm memories your posts bring, thank you Tipper.
My Granny Nichols made with with leftover biscuits. She would slice them then layer with the apple filling. My Dad loved to tell about these. Im sure she didnt have the money to make the cake so sued what she had in her kitchen.
Dear Tipper, Apple stack cake and fried apple pies are favorite desserts around here. Over the years my family has preferred these desserts over traditional apple pie or apple dumplings. You can’t, however, go wrong with any kind of apple dessert in my opinion. I remember how often stack cakes showed up at church suppers in the past. I remember one lady who took the time to scallop all her layers with a scalloped pie pan. It made a beautiful cake, but I would not have the patience to do it that way. I dry apples every year just so I will have them on hand for stack cake and fried pies.
Tipper, my mother, God Bless her heart , would make us these as kids. We love em. I guess of all yhe cakes my mom made , i remember the Apple Stack Cake most of all. Thanks for that memory. God Bless!
I actually prefer my apple stack cakes to be a bit thicker than in the picture…we sometimes used apple butter in between the layers…granny always said it made ’em moister without getting soggy…
It looks so good! I’ve never had it.
My mother-in-law made stack cakes using a totally different recipe. She used homemade apple butter as the filling between 10 or 12 thin, spicy cake-like layers. I never cared for them. They must have been good, as folks would ask her to bake them one and paid a high price for them. She sold them at church fund raisers for as much as $50. Your recipe sounds better than hers.
I’ve eaten one of these cakes but I’ve never made one. They are very good!
I also remember someone a long time age saying they put the cake away tightly wrapped for a long period of time before cutting it in order to allow it to completely blend together.
I want some. My Grandma made apple stack cake. I have not had any in years but it is a favorite. Somebody like Cracker Barrel should have it on their menu all the time. You could be their consultant to teach them how to make it. If I had any influence with them I would ask’em.
Hi tipper. This is the only cake I ever remember my grandma making. I have it in my cookbook and a pic of it on my front cover. I usually let it set at least 2 days before eating it. I don’t use dried apples. I didn’t have the recipe grandma made, but I think my finished product tastes just like hers did. I love it and each time I eat a piece I’m transported back in time of when I was a child. I can still hear the screen door slamming behind me as I walk out the door with a piece of it in my hand. It’s a tradition we should never forget.
Tipper–Stack cake has always been a favorite of mine. After I was grown and away from home Grandma Minnie, my paternal grandmother, always made one anytime she got word I was coming home. She did that until she was well into her 80s. She almost always used dried apples but I remember stack cakes being made with blackberry jam once or twice, and I’m sure dried peaches would have worked as well. Farr’s recipe differs a bit from hers but not much.
The thin custard is new to me. Grandma liked for her stack cakes to sit two or three days in a cool place so the flavors could marry.
One final thought, shame on you–you’ve done laid a craving on me this morning.
Jim Casada