On a lazy Sunday, after a week of rain, all baseball is cancelled and I find myself luxuriously free.  After a short but refreshing nap, I took a bath after applying a mud mask on my face.  I snuck around the house and scared the kids first.  Luke actually said, “What the heck!”

Anyway, I was in the bath, reading the latest Bon Appetit and was inspired to make the Apple Cake featured in an article about French chef, Mimi Thorisson.  It didn’t sound hard, just 12 steps!  I couldn’t stop thinking about the caramel and apples.  I decided to add pears as I love them more than apples.

Here’s what happened after I got the mud off my face and my pj’s and slippers on…

First I made the caramel, as directed.  I am very nervous about making caramel as I think most people are.  You just stick some sugar and a bit of water in a pan and voila, it becomes caramel?  Worrisome.

The first picture is the beginning, then adding the cream.. finally, stirring in the butter off the heat.  Notice my caramel clumped a bit but finally dissolved so all was well.  I started to sweat when I saw it was clumping but I bumped up the heat and kept stirring which resolved the problem and it turned into a smooth, lovely caramel.

Cooking the apples and pears… the pears dissolved and I had to take the skins out later… probably should have peeled them like the recipe said but I wanted to see how it would look with them on.

Instead of one big cake, I made smaller cakes because I thought they would be prettier.  I baked them for 28 minutes and I thought the lemon and pears were deliciously delicate but addictive.  I would never have thought I couldn’t wait until after dinner to taste it but I went ahead and ate the whole cake, with the caramel sauce.

Truly a cake to be remembered.  The cake itself is sweet but buttery with just the right amount of lemon.  The apples and pears are almost like a chunky applesauce.  I loved it!