INVISIBLE APPLE CAKE (GÂTEAU INVISIBLE)

• Peel the apples and slice very thinly, about 2 mm thick. Please see the notes above for the method to slice the apples.
• Preheat the oven to 350F. Line an 8 inch by 4-inch baking loaf pan with parchment paper.
• In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar until pale yellow. Add the milk and melted butter and mix until smooth.
• Sift in the flour. You want to sift it in to keep the batter light. If you do not have a flour sifter, this can easily be done with a mesh strainer. Add about a third of the flour into the strainer. Place the strainer directly above the bowl with the batter and tap the side of the strainer against your palm, letting the flour sift through into the bowl. Repeat with remaining flour. Whisk the batter until smooth.
• Add about half the sliced apples to the batter. Do your best to separate any slices stuck together before adding. Use a rubber spatula to stir apples until they are all coated with batter. Add in remaining apples and stir and coat until all apples are thinly coated in batter.
• Spoon the apples into a parchment paper-lined loaf pan. Try your best to make the apples all face the same way. Pour leftover batter over cake. Use a spatula to scrape the bowl to get every last bit of the leftover cake batter into your loaf pan.
• Sprinkle almonds over the top of the cake.
• Place loaf pan into the middle section of your oven and bake for 40 minutes. Cover top of cake lightly with a foil tent and bake another 10-20 minutes or until cake is done. To check if the cake is done, stick a toothpick into the cake batter and the batter should no longer be liquid. Baking time can vary depending on the number of apples you used and how much moisture was in the apples.
• Let cake cool to room temperature. Place into the fridge to set overnight.
• Right before serving, remove the cake from the fridge. Top with powdered sugar. Use a sharp knife to slice the cake.

HOW TO SLICE THE APPLES

• Since this cake is made up almost entirely of apples, the apple slices are the most important step. Here are some tips and photos.
• Choose a sweet apple variety, like fuji, Honeycrisp, ambrosia, or pink lady. Peel the apples completely.
• Using a sharp knife, slice one side of the apple as close to the core as possible. Do the same with the other side of the apple.
  
• Slice the two sides left, as close to the core as possible.
  
• Flip your apple slices so the flat side (the cut side) is facing down. Now evenly and thinly slices the apples. The apple slices should be able 2mm thick. If they are too thin, they slices will break off before your knife reaches the end of the apple. If they are too thick, your apple layers will look too thick in the cake.
  
• You don’t need a mandoline to slice your apples. You can achieve thinner slices with a mandoline but you don’t actually want the slices that thin for this recipe because the apple slices will break when mixed with the batter and the apple layers disappear too much into the cake. Cutting by hand as thinly as possible is the optimal width for these apple slices.