Tennessee Mountain Stack Cake

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder 
• 0.5 teaspoon baking soda 
• 0.5 cup buttermilk 
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon 
• 10 servings powdered sugar 
• 8 cups apples dried
• 2  eggs 
• 4.3 cups flour all-purpose
• 4 cups granulated sugar 
• 2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses 
• 2 teaspoons nutmeg 
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 6 ounces butter unsalted ()
• 3 cups water 

Equipment

• food processor
• bowl
• baking sheet
• sauce pan
• baking paper
• oven
• blender
• cake form
• spatula
• skewers

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F and place the rack inthe middle position.
2. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and whiskto combine. Set aside.
3. Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of astanding mixer fitted with the paddle attachmentand mix on medium speed until wet and grainy.
4. Add the molasses. Scrape the sides of the bowlwith a flexible spatula to get all of the molassesinto the mixture.
5. Add the eggs one at a time. Scrape all the way tothe bottom of the bowl and mix on low speed.
6. Alternately add the buttermilk and the dry mixtureabout a quarter at a time. Stop the mixerto scrape the bowl and turn it on again on lowspeed for about 10 seconds. The mixture shouldbe stiff like a soft cookie dough.
7. Shape the dough into a ball and wrap it in plasticwrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
8. Divide the dough into 6 or 8 equal portions andplace each one on a round piece of parchmentpaper a little larger than a 9-inch cake pan.
9. Rollout the dough to the size of the parchment.
10. Place the cake pan over the disk and trim awaythe excess around the edge.
11. Leaving the parchment paper underneath, liftthe disks onto baking sheets and bake them forapproximately 10 minutes, or until the top surfaceappears dry and a wooden skewer inserted in thecenter comes out clean.
12. Slide the disks off the baking sheet onto a flatsurface to cool.
13. To make the filling, combine all the ingredients in a large, heavy-bottom saucepan and bring to a light simmer. Immediately transfer to the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade and pulse into a thick paste.
14. To assemble the cake, spread about 1 cup of the filling onto each layer, taking care to center each disk on top of the one beneath it. Repeat until all the layers are used. Do not put apple filling on top of the cake.
15. Wrap the cake well and refrigerate it for up to 24 hours. This gives the apple filling time to work itself into the cake. Dust with confectioners' sugar and serve chilled.
16. Ideally, you should dry the apples yourself in a fruit-dehydrating machine. If that's not an option, go for store-bought dried apples. Don't cop out and buy applesauce, becausethe secret to the stack cake is not just what absorbs into the cake, but what doesn't. Jarred applesauce gets lost in the layers, leaving only a soggy stack. Although success isn't guaranteed, you can try to make dried apple slices in the oven. Peel and thinly slice 15 to 20 fresh apples (I like Gala or Cortland).
17. Place them,without overlapping, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and bake in a 225°F oven for up to 4 hours or until dried.
18. From United Cakes of America: Recipes Celebrating Every State by Warren Brown. Copyright © 2010 by Warren Brown; photographs © 2010 by Joshua Cogan. Published in 2010 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang, an imprint of ABRAMS.