Torta di Mele: A Baking Lesson from Tuscany, Vegan-Style

Biscotti, truffles, amaretti, butter cookies, brutta ma buoni (translation: ugly but good) — if there is one thing that we can all agree on about Italians, it’s that they know how to have fun with their dessert selection. In the scenic land of summer romance, grape vineyards, fairytale architecture, vespas, and limoncello, it’s hard to ever feel uninspired, and it’s even harder to stop eating when you’re full. I promise, the waiters there won’t let you. Il conto, per favore!

To be honest, I was never too interested in baking at all before Italy.

What can I say? One trip to that country sent me back home a little domesticated. To this day, it really does shock me that my lover, an aspiring chef I met while spending a balmy week on the southern coast in Positano two Junes ago, can casually whip up homemade dishes like basil pesto gnocchi, tiramisu, or pane di pasqua (Italian Easter bread) on a Friday night with the same ease that I possess when ordering spicy tofu ramen via UberEats at 2am. Fear not, fellow food lovers: I am genuinely starting to see the undeniable luxury of being in the kitchen, creating something out of love, through your own effort, feeding your family and friends with it, keeping their bellies full, and keeping that laughter rolling.

Since most of my family members are vegan or primary plant-based, I thought there was nothing better to experiment with than the sweet and nostalgic Italian torta di mele, or apple cake, vegan-style.

If you want to feel like you’re taking a trip to the luscious hills of Tuscany without even leaving your house, then this one's for you.

PS: My love, I adore you. Please don’t find it blasphemous that we are veganizing your classic here. Plant-based eaters need sweets, too!

TORTA DI MELE:

It’s essentially the Italian equivalent of our classic apple pie, the French’s gâteau aux pommes moelleux, the German’s Apfelkuchen, the Russians' apple sharlotka, and Latvia’s abolu pankukas; perfect for autumn, when the leaves are crisp, golden, and as paper-thin as sugared puff pastries. Torta di mele has no crimped edges like your average pie. It’s moist, fluffy, and light, and the main star of the show? Apples. And don’t forget a splash of lemon zest!

While Italy tends to make us think of lemons and prosciutto, the Italian landscape, specifically in the North, is full of sprawling orchard after orchard. The sweet fruit trees thrive around the cool, elevated alpine valleys. Whether it's the rusty brown Mela Roggiola or the fragrant green Mela del Casentino, apples are queen of the land in the Trentino-Alto Adige region, thriving everywhere from the Emilia-Romagna’s Po Valley to Veneto to Friuli.

I had this cake for the first time in Firenze on a dark, rainy day when the clouds felt close to the ground. I wasn’t dressed for the weather at all, but I promise you that a bite of this cake, paired with the mulled wine in a paper cup that I bought for €2 from a street vendor, warmed me up faster than a piping hot bubble bath ever could.

This rustic dessert pairs well traditionally with a shot of espresso and some whipping cream, but if you’re anything like me, you can take your slice with a short sparkling glass of Moscato d’Asti and the first season of Sex and the City. What pairs better with dessert than sweet, fizzy dessert wine and a splash of vicarious romance?

BEFORE WE START:

Let’s get the hard facts out of the way first:

• You will need just over an hour set aside to bake this cake, and you will also find it easiest to bake if you have a food scale on hand.
• You will need a sieve (thin mesh strainer), an apple peeler/sharp knife, and a springform pan (the cake is thick, so a pan 2 inches (5cm) deep should do the trick. 7 inches in diameter is preferable.
• Ingredients should be room temperature before use.
• This is a very delicate cake. Treat it like you would a baby. Maybe even better.

INGREDIENT LIST:

• 300 grams of all purpose flour (for a more rustic cake: 150 grams all purpose, 150 grams whole wheat)
• 150 grams of sugar (and 1 tbsp for the top)
• 180 grams of dairy-free yogurt
• 100 grams of dairy-free milk
• 40 grams sunflower or olive oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ⅛ teaspoon of sea salt
• 16 grams of baking powder
• 3 apples (granny smith, red delicious)
• 1 medium sized lemon (I skipped the lemon, my sister's allergic!)
• 1 tbsp icing sugar to top
• optional additions: cinnamon, Amaretto liquor, shaved almonds, dried cranberries

NOW, LET’S BAKE:

Prep:

1. Start by preheating your oven to 180°C (355°F).
2. Grease your springform pan with butter and dust lightly with flour.
3. Peel your apples. For the apples going on the top of the cake, you want them wedge-shaped and thin enough to bake, but not thin to the point where they’re wobbly and see-through. For the apples going in the batter, cut one apple into wedges and then cut them in ½ again into even smaller pieces.
4. Zest your lemon and leave the zest in a small bowl.
5. Juice the pulp of a lemon into another bowl and toss the apples in it to keep them fresh and flavoured while you prep the batter.

Batter:

1. In a medium sized bowl, first add your dairy-free yogurt while mixing in a circular motion with a whisk to remove as much air as possible. Add your dairy-free milk, olive oil, vanilla, sugar, and a pinch of salt. No fixed time on the mixing; just mix until all wet ingredients are nicely blended.
2. Sift the flour and the baking powder through a sieve (this removes those pesky lumps) then add them into the bowl of wet ingredients and mix (about ¼ of the dry mixture at a time).
3. Toss the baby-sized slices into the better and mix together with a spatula. Apple slices should be well-covered by our batter at this point. If you’re feeling fun, you could even add some dried cranberries to the batter at this point.

Almost there!

1. Pour the batter into your greased pan.
2. Time to decorate! Cover the surface of the cake with your thin apple slices in a circular fashion. Start from the outside of the pan and move your way in, overlaying each apple slice just a little bit. Take inspiration from a bird's eye view of a rose.
3. Top the cake with your sugar. I suggested 1 tbsp but you can go with your intuition on this one, just be careful not to put too much — we don’t want to burn the top!

Finalmente:

1. Put the cake pan into the oven, straight onto the baking rack (middle rack). Set your kitchen timer to 1 hour but check the inner consistency (if the knife/skewer/toothpick comes out clean, you’re good to go) before removing it from the oven. Do you smell that? It’s what dreams are made of.
2. Let the cake cool for at least one hour!
3. Once the cake is finished, you can add your icing sugar or cinnamon if that suits you. Cinnamon doesn’t usually go into the classic version of this cake, but I’m personally obsessed with the apple/cinnamon combo. You can also just leave it as it is — a little simplicity never hurt anybody.

A small note on storing leftovers:

• If you don’t finish it all in one sitting like my family did, this cake can be stored in an airtight container for up to three days.

Buon appetito a tutti!

Fun fact: The only Italian I knew intuitively after spending a month there in 2019 — aside from prego and ciao, bella — was the sentence, "Posso avere una bottiglia di vino rosso, per favore?" I wish I was joking!