The Core Facts

Overall verdict: I will admit that I was utterly defeated by Torta Di Mele. It’s a classic Italian dessert that doesn’t use pastry – instead, apples are baked into a sponge. I tried three times and although I saw some small improvements, even the third bake was pretty inedible.
Timings: 20 mins prep + 1 hour bake
Sugar: 185g
Butter: 170g
Type of apple: Granny Smith

The Long Peel

The Giada De Laurentiis recipe for Torta di Mele has very few instructions, which really appealed to me. When that didn’t work (twice) I used another recipe I found online. That didn’t work either.

The Pastry

There’s no pastry in a Torta Di Mele. Instead, the apples are baked into a sponge. Giada’s version uses butter, sugar, eggs, flour, ground almonds, Greek yoghurt, salt, cinnamon and baking powder.

My first attempt was awful – it was raw and completely inedible. I suspected that my dish was too small for the mixture so I halved the quantities for my second attempt. It was still inedible.

The Apples

For Giada’s recipe, 6 apples are sliced and coated in sugar and cinnamon. Half of the apples are scattered into the bottom of the dish. The batter goes on top and then the other half of the apples are arranged neatly on top.

For my third attempt, I picked a recipe where the apples pieces are mixed into the sponge batter. I figured that maybe the artfully-arranged apple on top of the sponge was preventing the cake from rising. This theory turned out to be wrong.

The Bake

My first attempt came out looking very burnt indeed. I used foil to try and stop the same thing happening to the second effort but I clearly adopted that tactic too late:

The Dish

Giada recommends a rectangular 9×13 inch tin for her recipe. I stuck with my round 23cm one for all of my attempts.

The Hot Slice

Believe it or not, this is a picture of my best effort. Imagine what the other two looked like. This is the non-Giada recipe and it tasted as bad as it looks:

The Rested Result

It looks heavy and not very appetising but at least it’s not raw (like the previous attempts).

If We Repeeled

• I won’t be retrying the Torta Di Mele

Scores

Simplicity of bake: Fairly straightforward
Pastry texture: No pastry!
Pastry taste: No pastry!
Apple texture: Very soft but discernible (in my third bake)
Apple taste: Subtle but definitely present (in my third bake)
Apple to pastry ratio: There isn’t much apple in it
Overall score: 4 out of 10