My mom made my dad Arthur's favorite cake, an apricot torte, for his birthday once a year. Once you make it you will only want to make it once a year, too.
It's not especially hard to make but there are a lot of steps to the recipe and it takes two days to make, on-and-off. The finished cake must be stored in the fridge, so you will need sufficient space for an entire 10" cake in your refrigerator.
Before we were married, I invited Norm to a fall family dinner, and my mom served this cake. Norm had two pieces....
This recipe is for a 10" aluminum springform pan, 3" deep. A new non-stick pan might be too slippery for the batter in this recipe to grip the sides and rise properly.
On the first day, make the sponge cake in the morning, and follow the instructions to fully cool the cake, upside down. Wrap the fully cooled cake with foil or plastic wrap to keep it fresh. Make the apricot puree for the glaze and refrigerate to chill. The apricot custard may also be prepared in advance but the apricot glaze must be chilled before it's added to the custard, so make the custard after the glaze is refrigerated. The custard must be cold when you add the whipped cream, so you will finish making the custard on the second day.
On the day the cake is to be served, make the whipped cream. Cut the cooled cake into two even layers: measure half-way up the sides of the cake, insert toothpicks to measure the halfway point, slice the cake into two layers using a long, very sharp knife. If you have an adjustable stainless steel cake layer slicer, use it.
Add whipped cream to the cold apricot custard for the filling.
Follow directions for assembly, spreading the reserved apricot glaze just in the centre of the top of the cake. Apply whipped cream to the rest of the cake, then refrigerate the entire cake until serving. Note: if the cake isn't to be served for another day or will have to sit outside of the fridge awhile, you might want to make stabilized whipped cream by adding gelatin (recipe below.)
Sponge Cake for Apricot Torte
- While the eggs are still cold from the fridge, separate into two bowls:
- 6 large eggs
2. Let the egg whites sit covered on the counter to reach room temperature.
3. In a large mixer bowl, beat for 20 minutes:
- 6 egg yolks
- 1/2 cup cold water
During this time, sift the flour (for step 7) and assemble the rest of your ingredients.
Cut a round of parchment paper to line an ungreased:
- springform pan, 10" round and 3" deep.
Do not grease the sides of the pan.
4. To the beaten egg yolk mixture, gradually add, while beating:
- 1-1/2 cup fine white granulated sugar
5. Scrape down sides of bowl, beat for another 20 minutes then add while beating:
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
7. Spoon sifted flour into a measuring cup to measure, level off, and mix in by spoonfuls:
- 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour OR 1-1/2 cups + 3 Tbsp cake flour
Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula when needed. Set mixed cake batter aside.
8. Wash and dry the mixer beaters or use the whipping attachment of your stand mixer to beat on high speed, in another mixing bowl:
- 6 room temperature egg whites
- 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
Beat until stiff peaks form when you lift the beaters.
9. With a long-handled spatula, by hand, fold the beaten egg white mixture into the cake batter just until combined. Work carefully as the mixer bowl will be very full.
10. Immediately, with the spatula, scoop and spread the batter into the prepared springform pan. In my 10-1/4" pan that is only 2-1/2" deep, the pan is almost full to the top. This isn't ideal, it's best to use a 3" deep pan.
11. Bake on centre rack of preheated 350 degree F oven 70-80 minutes. No thumping around the kitchen while it's in the oven!
12. When cake is baked, a cake tester inserted into the centre should come out clean.
13. Invert cake, still in the pan, and balance the edges of the pan on:
- 4-5 inverted glasses of the same height
14. Allow cake in pan to cool completely, upside-down.
15. When cake has cooled, place the cake pan on the counter bottom side down and run a sharp knife around the edge of the cake in the pan to loosen the sides.
16. Now unclip the springform pan's hinges to release the cake from the pan. Wrap the cake to keep fresh if not ready to assemble.
16. When ready to fill the cake, remove the cake from the bottom of the pan and peel off the parchment. This seems obvious, but I've forgotten to do it.
17. With the cake on its serving plate, cut the cake evenly across to make two layers, with a cake slicer if you have one. Or measure half-way down the sides of the cake and mark the half-way point all around the cake with 4-6 toothpicks. Cut the cake evenly into two layers horizontally with that sharp knife, using the toothpicks as guides.
Cake Assembly
- Spread apricot custard (recipe below) almost to the edges of the upper side of the bottom cake layer. Don't be generous and spread filling right to the edges of the cake because it will ooze out when you add the second layer and mess up the whipping cream on the sides.
- Gently place the second layer on top of the first.
- In the centre of the top round, spread a circle of cold apricot glaze (recipe below.)
- Surround the circle with stabilized whipped cream (recipe below) to the edges of the cake.
- Spread whipped cream around the sides of the cake with a spatula.
- Refrigerate the finished cake until serving. Don't wrap or cover it unless you have a cake dome large enough to not touch the top or sides of the cake.
- 11 oz. dried apricots, weighed (see note)
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp fresh-squeezed lemon juice
- 1/2 cup instant-dissolving sugar (OR white granulated sugar)
Note: Some organic dried apricots are a brown colour. Use apricot-colored dried apricots for a more attractive cake. If you don't have a food scale, pressed into my 2 cup pyrex measuring cup, 11 oz apricots looks like 1-2/3 cups.
Substitution: my mom has made apricot glaze using Heinz Junior Apricot Dessert (baby food) heated with white granulated sugar and apricot jam.
When making the glaze from dried apricots, she uses the lemon juice but leaves out the vanilla.
- Finely chop the dried apricots, put in a pot, cover with water.
- Bring to a boil, then simmer with a lid on, stirring occasionally, cooking until the apricots are very soft. Add a little more boiling water if necessary. Don't let the apricots scorch.
- When apricots are cooked but still hot, stir in white granulated sugar until dissolved. If using instant-dissolving sugar, add the sugar later, in step 6, after mashing the cooked apricots.
- Drain the cooked apricots through a strainer, into a bowl or large measuring cup, reserving the liquid.
- Mash the apricots (use a blender or food processor) adding 1/4 cup of the reserved liquid.
- Add: instant dissolving sugar (if using), vanilla, and lemon juice. Mix in well.
- Let cool. Refrigerate.
- You will use 1/2 cup of the cold apricot glaze in the custard, and spoon the rest on top of the centre of the cake.
Apricot Custard
You need to start making this after the apricot glaze is cold. Then you refrigerate it and when the custard is cold, mix in the whipped cream.
- 1-3/4 cups milk
- 4 Tbsp Bird's Custard Powder
- 3 Tbsp sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup cold apricot glaze (see recipe above)
- 1 cup whipped cream (see recipe below)
- Heat 1 cup milk in a saucepan on the stove.
- In a small bowl or a measuring cup with a small whisk, whisk 3/4 cup cold milk with 4 Tbsp custard powder.
- When small bubbles form around the edge of the pot of the heated milk on the stove, whisk in the custard and milk mixture.
- Stirring frequently, mix in sugar.
- Keep stirring so custard doesn't burn on bottom and sides of pot.
- Reduce heat if necessary.
- When mixture becomes a thick pudding, remove from heat.
- While mixture is still hot, stir in 1 tsp vanilla and 1/2 cup cold apricot glaze.
- Let cool. Refrigerate.
- When apricot custard is completely cool, fold in 1 cup whipped cream or stabilized whipped cream (recipe follows).
The apricot custard is spooned into the hole of cored vanilla cupcakes or if making an apricot torte, the apricot custard fills the two layers of the cake.
Stabilized Whipped Cream
Before you start, put your mixer bowl and beaters in the fridge until they're cold (or about 10-15 minutes in the freezer.)
If the fat in the cream gets warm, it melts and the air that makes the whipped cream light and fluffy will escape. So always whip cream in a cold bowl with cold beaters.
Even so, plain whipped cream will go flat in a few hours. Adding liquid gelatin makes stabilized whipped cream, which keeps its shape and stays light and fluffy. Stabilized whipped cream is great when using whipped cream for cake frosting and topping pies and cupcakes. Adding the gelatin can be tricky, so follow the instructions so you don't end up with globs of gelatin in the whipped cream, or globby butter. Good luck!
- 1 envelope (about 1 Tbsp) plain unflavoured gelatin powder
- 6 Tbsp room temperature water
- 2 cups heavy (whipping) cream, chilled
- 4-6 Tbsp icing (confectioner's) sugar
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract*
*You can substitute sweet liqueur, rum, brandy. lemon or other non-bitter flavoring for the vanilla if using the whipped cream in other recipes. Also, stabilized whipped cream can be used in recipes that call for Cool Whip (a commercial product containing corn syrup.)
- Sprinkle gelatin powder over room-temperature water in a small, heat-proof container. (This is called "blooming" the gelatin.) Use a microwave safe container (if heating in the microwave) or a small pot or stainless steel bowl (if using the stove.)
- Let gelatin stand a few minutes until water is absorbed. It will get thick and might solidify.
- Microwave the gelatin for about 5 seconds or until it returns to a liquid form. OR: Place the bowl of gelatin mixture in a pot of boiling water, stir quickly, don't let the gelatin boil.When gelatin is dissolved, remove from heat.
- Meanwhile, start whipping the whipping cream in the cold bowl of your electric mixer using cold beaters, until the cream is the consistency of soft custard.
- Continue beating at low speed while pouring in the room temperature liquid gelatin mixture, in a steady stream.
- Increase speed to medium-high and beat until soft peaks form then add icing sugar and vanilla or other flavoring and finish whipping.
- Do not overbeat or your whipping cream will turn into butter.
