The Viking is highly aromatic, crisp, juicy and tart.  Outstanding flavor retention when cooked. Keeps about 1 month.  Developed by the PRI (Purdue, Rutgers, Illinois Co Op) program but introduced by Wisconsin in 1969.  This is also one of the first to ripen at our orchard…around August 8th…give or take a week.

When doing research on this apple I found a recipe using it on www.kitchencaravan.com .  Now, I haven’t tried it but it looks yummy!  If anyone makes it and tweeks anything about it please let me know and we’ll use it in our next cookbook!

Viking Apple Cake

This cake is pretty light. We use yogurt instead of butter, and give the cake body with lots of apples. The batter starts out looking like more apples than batter, but then as it bakes the apples shrink and the cake forms beautifully. This is a delicious pairing of apples, cardamom, and buckwheat. It is quick and easy to put together for dessert.

1 cup yogurt
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp orange blossom water
1 cup all purpose flour
½ cup buckwheat flour
1 tsp ground cardamom
pinch of cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
3 cups apples, peeled and diced
½ cups almonds, ground
Garnish: Crème Fraîche

Whisk together the yogurt and the sugar in a bowl. Add the eggs and orange blossom water and whisk.
Sift together the flours, cardamom, cinnamon, and baking powder in a separate bowl.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and stir.
Stir in the apples and ground almonds and pour into a 10” spring-form cake tin.
Bake at 350ºF for 45-50 minutes.

Garnish with a spoonful of fresh crème fraîche.