Vegan Apple Cake with Corn Flour

What's left to say about apple pie? Does it make sense to talk about it one more time, and pull out yet another version, different and always the same, when we've already used pages over pages of the blogosphere in its honor, and we've already emptied wagons full of cyber-praises in perpetual memory of it? After years of glorious dipping, do we really need to remind ourselves that not only it still exists, the stoic and fragrant Countess of the five o'clock tea, the soft Queen of breakfast latte, but it also wins the challenge against the sophistry of modern snacks thanks to its moving and unwavering simplicity?
The answer - I think - is all here, in the sincere and soft scent that has inundated my closet kitchen, while I was desperately trying to find a reason and make sense of this post.
So I realize that apple cake needs no justification, whether you like it or not it's like a scrapbook, always nice to browse and always ready to welcome an extra page. Each one has its own, with their personal stories, their grandmother and their summer afternoons; but when you look at the group photos with all the classmates, the snapshots taken at six year old, or the portraits of tanned and light faces under the August sky, as if by magic, in those looks, poses and smiles you'll find the same questions full of certainties, one big illusion flashing in those unsuspecting eyes.
Apple cake speaks a universal language, be it vegan, à la mode or American pie, with its vintage postcard's look and its cozy and pleasant scent; it gathers geographies and generations inside the same ampoule of peace, it surrounds the heart and the mind with the same warm and sincere illusion.
There will never be an end to apple cakes; as thoughts full of sense and mutually enriching, they are coming one after the other eternally separated by a semicolon. After an apple cake you can't put a period, let alone start a new paragraph; apple cake is like spring that returns always new to warm your guts, even if you leave an empty line in the middle.
And so this end of April of mine, without apology and without a reason, is just another apple cake with a semicolon at the end, different but luckily a little bit the same as before, and it adds to the list, to the end of the thought that goes on, it's another page no longer empty in the universal album of memories.




Vegan Apple Cake
with Corn Flour and Olive Oil
for a round cake pan of 9" diameter

type 0 flour 250 gr
fine ground corn flour 180 gr
corn starch 70 gr
sugar 200 gr
salt 1 pinch
soy yogurt 300 gr
olive oil 170 gr
lemon 1
baking powder 16 gr (1 small satchel)
raisins 80 gr
rice milk (or soy, or oat) approx. 1/2 glass
apple 1
cane sugar, cinnamon, powdered sugar to taste

Soak raisins in milk for a few minutes, drain and set aside. Beat yogurt with sugar, a pinch of salt and the lemon zest until there are no more lumps. Combine and sift together flours, baking powder, and cornstarch, and gradually stir them in, alternating the addition of olive oil and enough milk so that the dough gets soft but firm enough to drop heavily from the spoon. Add the raisins and mix. Peel the apple, cut it into thin slices and sprinkle them with lemon juice. Pour the batter into the baking pan, previously greased and dusted with flour, arrange the apple slices on top, and sprinkle lightly with brown sugar mixed with a little cinnamon.
Bake at 360 for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool off, then dust the surface with powdered sugar