Marie-Helene's apple cake

This was the first thing I baked in the oven in my new place. I thought and thought about what I wanted to make first. The more I thought, the harder it was to choose just the right thing. In the end, I had a huge bag of apples and an apple cake recipe on the list for French Fridays with Dorie. This is only my second recipe with the group, as there is no requirement to cook along every week. I am the slacker sort, so I have been picking and choosing to make only what I can eat/have time for. I am so glad I made this recipe, though, as it was delicious. So delicious that I made it twice. This is the second one above, for which I browned the butter and replaced the rum with Amaretto. It was a much nicer colour than the first one, but also significantly sweeter. I used the same apples for both--a mix of Empire and Cortland, so not sure why it was so much sweeter--more than a few tablespoons of Amaretto would account for. Anyway, it was fantastic, and luckily I sent lots of it home with a friend, or I would have eaten the entire thing. Here's a picture of the first one, made before I realized my oven runs 50℉ lower than the temperature gauge indicates:

Check out the 'Leave your Link' feature on the spiffy French Fridays with Dorie site to see how the other bakers fared. Oh, and if you're looking for the recipe, it's in the book. We've been asked not to publish recipes from this book, and you can hardly blame Dorie, with her recipes burning up the blogosphere.