James Beard's Amazing Apple Cake

Forget other apple cake recipes and make this...trust me

This is NOT my own recipe. I am not ashamed to admit that. But it is the BEST apple cake recipe I have ever encountered. I found it about 40 years ago in the New James Beard cookbook and it is called Don Farmer’s Fresh Apple Cake. I have tried to find out who Don Farmer is to no avail. Was he a friend, colleague, lover? If you have a lead on this, message me.

NOTE: After I posted this story I received a message from a Don Farmer’s niece. Don was indeed a real person and dear friend of Mr.Beard

I served this simple cake all gussied up at the James Beard House “Hudson Valley in the Big Apple” dinner that I cooked back in 2012. That is what chefs do. We gussy stuff up. We feel this need to reinterpret an otherwise perfect dish. In the case of this dish, it is not the best idea. The cake is too perfectly delectable to fuck with. When I gussied it up I added garnishes; apple cider compote and aged cheddar ice cream, but I did not alter the recipe. Who am I to edit James Beard?

James Beard was absolutely one of the biggest influences to my cooking career. If you don’t know him, you are missing out on the best. He was the best cook, educator and personality of his time. 

If you haven’t watched the PBS American Masters documentary on him, here is the link https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/james-beard-documentary/8505/

It is a great watch. 

When I began cooking in real kitchens back in the early '80s the personal computer was still a few years from hitting the market. There was obviously no google, no Chat gpt, no, not even the internet. But there were magazines and books, lots of books, many incredible books. When we cooks needed inspiration and instructions, books and magazines are where we found them. If my chef assigned me to make something I may have been unsure of, I snuck off to the cluttered little alcove between the staff bathroom and the cleaning supply storage room called the Chef's office and pulled a book from the makeshift milk crate shelves to get the answer I needed. Many of the books were grease stained, some had stringy torn binders, pages were dog eared or notated with pencil, pen and crayon. The book I referred to most often was The New James Beard. It was an exciting brand new release in 1981. It brought together his wealth of gastronomic knowledge in one essential guide. It is filled with about a  thousand recipes and indispensable tips for getting your cooking right. I still recommend this book for aspiring chefs. There are no photos, just lack and white illustrations, but you will feel like you are in the kitchen with Mr. Beard. He speaks to you and makes his recipes as clear as October moonlight. If you need to walk before you can run, this book will teach you to crawl first. Every recipe is solid and correct. 

When I started my first executive chef job, the New James Beard sat on my desk next to the first aid kit, clearly accessible among the piles of clip boards, inventory sheets, local news rags and stacks of magazines. When I opened my first restaurant, the New James Beard was on the cookbook shelf I set up in the prep station.  For all of the talk of my reputation for being an innovator, I am only able to innovate successfully because I learned the fundamentals, and many of those came from James Beard.

So here is the recipe. You can make it in a bundt pan, a 9 or 10 inch cake pan, in a 9x14 pyrex rectangle pan or a muffin pan. 

The glaze below is great, but you can make it without it too.