Apple cake is kind of an inside joke in my family. My sweet grandma, bless her heart, makes an apple cake every Thanksgiving. After the gigantic feast that my aunt turns out, and with all the other incredible desserts on the table, grandma’s apple cake often gets ignored. But she will ask each and every one of us, “Have you tried the apple cake? You should. It’s so moist!” It never fails, this is just part of Thanksgiving for us :)
I had to smile when I saw this recipe for apple cake, and I thought of Grandma immediately. It was a great way to help use up some of the apples we picked at the orchard during our last trip. We really enjoyed this! The cake tastes great, and to quote Grandma, it is very moist! I did feel that it was a bit over done, and it ended up being more brown on the edges than I would have liked. It still tasted fantastic, but next time I will start checking it around 1 hour and 15 minutes to prevent that. Also, because I am big on fruit, I would probably add a couple more apples next time. I just can’t get enough apples!
Apple Cake
Ingredients:
6 apples (I used Winesap)
1 tbsp. cinnamon
5 tbsp. sugar
2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
¼ cup orange juice
2 ½ tsp. vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Grease a tube pan. Peel, core, and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon and sugar, and set aside.
Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, orange juice and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones. Then add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.
Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan. Spread half of the apples over the batter. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Bake for about 1 ½ hours, or until a tester comes out clean.
Source: adapted from Smitten Kitchen
