Apple cake "Almas porlos testa"

This apple cake is quite popular in Hungary and Romania and is easy to make.

Dough:

200gm shortening (Crisco)
150gm icing sugar or regular
½ cup sour cream
500gm flour
3 egg yolks
1 baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp lemon extract (optional)


Filling:
1 1/2kg sour apples
1 cup sugar
2 packets vanilla sugar
ground cinnamon to taste or 1/2 tbsp
1 tbsp. lemon juice option

1/2 cup of breadcrumbs

Make Filling :
Peel apples, core, and grate. Add other filling ingredients except bread crumbs, and mix. Put the mixture in a pot on slow heat and cook it for 3-5 min till part of the juice came out from apple. Drain the apple mixture, the juice put asside it wont be used for cake.
Taste and adjust sweetness and tartness, let it cool.

Make the dough:
Cream shortening and sugar thoroughly, then add beaten egg yolks. Mix well. Sift flour and salt with baking powder. Alternate adding flour and sour cream to the mixture. Mix well, The dough will be quite crumbly and hard to put together, dont mix it more than is necessary. Form into a big ball cover with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for an hour.

Heat oven to medium-high (190°C, 375°F).

Cake assembly;

Take half of the dough and layer with a spoon and level it, to fit the bottom of an 8 inch square baking dish which you have buttered. The mixture is crumbly and difficult to roll it if you chose another method to assembly the cake. Spread the bread crumbs on the first dough layer and add the apple filling with the and distribute it evenly over the dough. On top of the apple filling spread the cinnamon and vanila suggar. Add the other half of the dough by grating it on top of the apple filling and than level it slighlty with a spoon, or try to roll the dough in a thin layer and put on top of the filling.

Bake it for 35-45min, remove from heat, add icing sugar on top, let it cool and cut in square.