Sunday Morning Apple Cake

I walked into my kitchen one morning and discovered I had a bunch of apples in my fruit bowl that were looking sad. Seeing as it is not apple season right now (see: July, humid, hot) I was not at all surprised that these apples had decided it was their time to start heading towards the light. 

Wait! I can make you into something delicious! Apple Cake!!

  I dug out my apple peeler-corer-sliced that I inherited from my grandmother. If you do not have one of these... get one. Seriously. It is worth its weight in gold. Peeling and slicing up apples was one of my least favorite things to do and this made it all better. It literally does just what it says - it peels, slices & cores an apple all at one time. It's just magic.

 Before

 After

 See how amazing it is?! Anyway - I got side-tracked... we're making Apple Cake. Two apples, peeled, sliced, cored and then slice in half. I usually cut the core out completely to avoid any rough spots. I  basically take the half apple and cut down on either side of the core, then once behind the core and call it a day. 

 I decided our apple bread needed some toasted walnuts. Easiest way is to just toss the walnut pieces into a dry frying pan over medium-high heat until they become fragrant - just a few minutes. 

 In a bowl I tossed together my sliced-up apples, some golden raisins & my toasted (and then roughly-chopped) walnut pieces. 

 In a separate bowl I mixed together the dry ingredients, then added the wet to make this mixture. Be aware, it's not a batter - it's more of a crumbly mixture. 

Once it's all mixed together - add the apple-raisin-walnut mix - mix it up well and pour it all into a greased bread pan. I think the recipe I was reading asked for an 8x4 pan... I actually have no idea what the dimensions of my loaf pans are.. I just guess. That's what separates me from the novice bakers - my ability to adapt pan sizes. Ha!

And this gloriousness is your end result. The texture of this is less bread-y and a bit more cake-y. I suppose you're supposed to wait until it cools to slice into it and eat it but that was not happening on this particular morning. I'm pretty sure while the oven mitts were still on we demolished about 1/2 the cake for breakfast. I couldn't even get a better picture than this. 

This is actually really good for breakfast - or if you can wait for dessert, this would be super amazing with some vanilla ice cream. Yum. 

Cheers to the cook!

Apple Cake - adapted from All Recipes

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 apples - peeled, cored, and chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup golden raisins 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour an 8x4 inch loaf pan (or whatever you have.. don't get stuck on the logistics - just remember to alter your baking time a bit if you use a different sized pan). 
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, mix together the sugar, egg and oil. stir in the sifted ingredients. 
4. Fold in the apples, nuts and raisins.
5. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Applesauce

Last week after I made my apple turnovers I had some left over apple mixture & started taking it in my lunch in about 1/2 cup portions. Delicious! So, this week, I decided to do it again. Last night I chopped up about 4 Gala apple (roughly 1lb) and put them in a sauce pan with about 1/4c water & let them simmer for a good 10 minutes. Added some cinnamon & then mashed them up. Nothing beats homemade applesauce - and it is so easy!

All this talk about apples...

All this crazy talk about apples got me hunting around for something appley... and when nothing presented itself... I decided to make some apple turnovers! I had read this cute vignette in Bon Appetit about a lady visiting Paris & how all she wanted was a chocolate croissant... but the bakery in her neighborhood had sold out so she ended up getting an apple turnover (which had a much cooler french name in the story) and how she fell in love. So, I made these apple turnovers.

So delicious yet not too hard either. Worth the extra work to boil & mash up the fresh Granny Smith & Gala apples.


A Tasty Treat that kicks the pants off the Apple Pie at McDonalds!