Pumpkin Apple Cake

When I saw this recipe in Annemarie Wildeisen's cooking magazine lately, I was intrigued immediately. What a great idea to combine two fall favorites! The result is a wonderfully moist cake with a really comforting taste and a vibrant orange color. The orange peel is the little extra which gives the flavor just a bit more complexity.

Recipe

(find the German version on Annemarie Wildeisen's homepage)

300g pumpkin, peeled

400g apples, such as Golden Delicious

150g soft butter

1 teaspoon vanilla paste or half a teaspoon vanilla powder (I used the scraped out seeds of one vanilla pod)

zest of one orange

1/4 teaspoon salt

200g sugar

4 eggs

1/2 sachet baking powder

300g flour

25g slivered almonds

Butter and flour a 25cm loaf tin. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Grate your pumpkin. Peel and core your apples. Cut into slices. 

In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, beat butter together with vanilla, orange peel, salt and sugar. Beat for about 5 minutes until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs, one after the other and mix well. Then, add grated pumpkin.

Sift together flour and baking powder and add to you butter-sugar-egg-mixture. I blended it in with the mixer first and then used a ladle. When all is well incorporated, fill your dough into the prepared cake tin. Stick your apple slices into the dough and sprinkle with slivered almonds (I added the almonds only after about 20 minutes of the baking time because I was afraid they would turn too brown otherwise).

Bake your cake for about 50-60 minutes. A wooden skewer inserted into the cake should come out clean.