I love fruit, baking, and baked goods, so you would think that would naturally translate to an affinity for pies and tortes, but you would be wrong. I don’t like cooked fruit (except bananas, such as in my famous chocolate chip banana muffins, and blueberries), but I do recognize that other people like it, so I’m happy to bake it for them – like this creamy dreamy apple torte (and it’s a great excuse to eat sugar and cinnamon coated apples that ‘don’t fit’ in the torte).

Apple Torte

Ingredients

Base

• ½ cup butter
• ⅓ cup sugar
• ¼ teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup flour
• ¼ raspberry/fruit of your choosing jam (optional)

Filling

• 8 ounces cream cheese
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• ½ teaspoon vanilla

Topping

• ⅓ cup sugar
  
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• 4 cups apples, peeled, cored and sliced
• ½ cup sliced almonds (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 450^oF.

To make crust, cream butter, sugar and vanilla. Blend in flour to form crumbly mixture. Press on the bottom and sides of a 9″ (2 L) spring form pan.   (Optional: spread with a thin layer of jam, use more if necessary to cover completely.)

For the filling, combine the cream cheese and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla, and blend well. Pour and spread evenly over the base/jam.

For the topping, toss the apples with the sugar and cinnamon. You can either spoon them over the cream cheese mixture, or neatly arrange them lying each other in three concentric circles alternating directions, like I did (see pictures). (Optional: sprinkle with almonds – I usually do but didn’t have enough this time).

Bake at 450^oF for 10 minutes, then at 400^oF for 25 minutes. Allow to cool before carefully removing sides of pan.

Note: I use a food processor to make the crust and filling.