French Apple Cake
This recipe for a French Apple Cake just won a blue ribbon (in International Cuisine desserts) at the 2026 NM State Fair. An easy fall recipe to celebrate local apples!
People will be tempted to add spices like cinnamon. They should resist, as the flavors in this really make the apples the star.
Ingredients
• 125 g flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp sea salt
• 475 g apples, peeled, cored and diced
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 140 g unsalted butter
• 135 g white sugar, plus more for dusting pan and sprinkling
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 7 g vanilla extract
• 45 g Calvados
• 30 g heavy cream
• 30 g Greek yogurt
• Turbinado sugar for dusting top of cake
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Heat butter in stainless steel skillet over medium heat, stirring constantly. In 5 – 8 minutes, the milks solids will have settled to the bottom of the pan and start to turn a caramel brown; the butter will smell toasty and nutty. Immediately transfer the butter to a heatproof bowl to stop the cooking, and let cool to room temperature.
3. Butter a 9-inch round springform pan and add a parchment circle to the bottom. Butter the parchment paper then dust pan with granulated sugar.
4. Whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder.
5. Peel, core, and dice apples, then toss with lemon juice.
6. Cream browned butter and white sugar together briefly (~ 2 minutes)
7. Add eggs one at a time into creamed butter-sugar mix until just fully incorporated and homogeneous (25 – 30 seconds per egg)
8. Whisk together cream and yogurt until smooth.
9. Add vanilla, Calvados, and cream-yogurt mix, and mix until homogeneous.
10. Add flour mix and gently mix until just combined.
11. Gently fold in apples to batter.
12. Spread batter in pan, then sprinkle top with 3 – 4 tbsp turbinado sugar.
13. Put into 350 F oven and bake for at least 40 minutes. Top should be golden crust with caramelization of sugar, with an internal temperature around 195 – 200 F.
14. Let sit at room temp for one hour, then remove cake from pan to cool on rack to room temp. Transfer cake to refrigerator to chill for at least 4 hours.
About the Contributor
This locally inspired recipe is brought to you by Evelyn Lockhart, MD. Evelyn is an amateur baker and cook, and a professor of pathology at University of New Mexico Health Science Center. She won best-in-show for pies at the 2025 New Mexico State Fair baking contest.