Gold Rush Cake

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 150 g biscuits (cantuccini)
• 75 g butter
• 4 eggs, separated
• 125 g sugar
• 4 tbsp water, hot
• 75 g flour
• 50 g ground walnuts
• 800 g apples (approx. 5-6 pieces)
• 500 ml apple juice
• 1 lemon(s), the juice
• 4 tbsp Calvados
• 50 g cornstarch
• 400 g cream cheese, light
• 2 tbsp honey
• 200 g cream
• 200 g cream
• Walnuts, halves
• Hazelnuts, flakes
• possibly apple slices

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour 30 minutes; Total time approx. 1 hour 30 minutes

Wrap cake with walnut sponge cake, apple filling, honey cream cheese and three kinds of nuts

For the base, it’s best to finely crumble the cantuccini in a mixer. Melt the butter and stir in the crumbs. Place a 26cm cake ring or springform pan on a cake plate. Press the crumb mixture into the ring to form the base and chill. If you don’t like this base, you can of course use shortcrust pastry!! For the sponge cake, beat the egg whites with a little salt until stiff, sprinkle in 50g of sugar and beat again until stiff. Place in the fridge. Grease a baking tray and line with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Whisk the egg yolks with the water, then gradually add the remaining sugar. When the mixture is thick and creamy, sprinkle the flour and walnuts over the top. Pour the beaten egg whites on top and carefully fold everything in. Now place the sponge cake on the prepared baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for approx. 15 minutes. Immediately turn out onto a work surface and allow to cool slightly. Peel, core, and finely dice the apples. Bring the apple juice and lemon juice to a boil in a small saucepan and add the apples. Simmer for about 15 minutes until soft. Meanwhile, mix the cornstarch with the Calvados. When the apples are nice and soft, stir in the cornstarch mixture and bring back to a boil briefly. Spread the mixture onto the sponge cake and let cool. Mix the cream cheese with the honey until smooth. Whip the cream until stiff and fold into the honey cream. Set aside about 4 tablespoons of the cream for the garnish. Spread the remaining cream onto the cooled apple mixture and cut the pastry into strips about 4 cm wide. Roll up the first one and place it in the center of the cantuccini base. Carefully attach all the remaining strips one after the other to the previous one and roll them up like a spiral. Secure with the cake ring or the side of a springform pan and chill. Meanwhile, whip the remaining cream until stiff. Put 2 tablespoons of it into a piping bag and chill. Now spread the remaining cream over the surface of the cake to smooth out any unevenness. Then carefully loosen the cake ring and spread the remaining honey cream over the edge of the cake. (It doesn’t have to be opaque, just cover it all the way around—the hazelnut flakes will be on it anyway.) Then use a piping bag to pipe tufts onto the surface and decorate with walnuts and hazelnut flakes. Add hazelnut flakes to the edges of the cake. If you like, you can also garnish the cake with apple slices, but these will be hard and can quickly turn brown.