Good intentions

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Dimply Plum Cake, chosen by Michelle of Bake-en. Unfortunately, although I had every intention of making this with plums, my usual grocery shopping venues didn't cooperate.  Had this been a month ago, it would have been no problem, but the few plums I saw didn't look all that great.  No good peaches, either, and I don't like cherries.  Since we're finally heading into fall, I decided to go with apples, one of my favorites anyway.  It sounded like a good idea....

My mistake was in not going with my gut.  My favorite apple variety is Macintosh.  While I was in PA last week, I actually thought ahead and called my grandmother before she headed down from upstate New York.  She was able to stop at her local orchard and bring me a couple pounds of apples.  Three remain in my fridge, waiting to be eaten.  =)  Sure, I can get New York Macs here, but they're a lot farther from home and taste like it.  Not bad, but just not the same.  Anyway, I usually use Macs for baking, even in recipes that say not to (they tend to get very soft with cooking).  But I was thinking in terms of apples that I could fit on top of the cake without as much slicing, and went with some small Granny Smiths (Central Market calls them "lunchbox apples" because they're the perfect size for kids' lunches).  

Big mistake.  Even cut into quarters (pretty small ones at that), the firm apples simply didn't have enough time to cook through.  And oddly enough, even though the cake was overbaked and dry around the edges, it was gooey around the apples.  Which is a shame, because I thought the cake itself was very tasty--when I was making the batter, I thought it reminded me of my favorite blondie recipe.  My taste testers agreed--good cake, but bad apples.  =)

That was Gillian who completely ate around them.  =)  I definitely want to try this recipe again, to see if I can find a way to make the apples work.  I also thought about omitting the fruit all together and just topping the cake with nuts or streusel.  I'll let you know what I come up with.  In the meantime, head over the TWD blogroll to see how others fared this week, or try it yourself.  You can find the recipe on Michelle's blog.