What do you do when you have a lot of apples in your home? Make a pie of course! It’s the apple harvest season. My aunt has an apple tree in their home and she has just given me a bag of red apples. I was about to decline because my dad still has a sack of apples in the refrigerator. I don’t want the food to go to waste but my dad insist that I take those apples. So I’m stuck with a lot of apples now. I don’t eat apples unless they are peeled and sliced…by someone. That’s why I crammed looking for an apple recipe in the internet before the apples spoil.
I’ve been doing the apple crumb pie a lot of times already and I decided to try a new apple recipe. I would love to do another apple pie recipe but it seems that most of the recipes I researched were just a slight variation from the pie recipe I’ve been using. So I decided to do a cake. Let me tell you about my baking history with cake: Flour and me don’t mix well. I always end up with an unsuccessful cake. Another reason I don’t do cake is the lack of electric mixer. Despite these setbacks, I still went ahead and bake me a cake. Oh well…
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter or shortening
3/4 cup white sugar – I used 1/4c brown sugar and 1/2c white sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk
2 apples – peeled, cored and cut into eighths
1/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Directions:
1. Sift flour with baking powder and salt.
2. In a large bowl, cream shortening and 1 cup sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla until fluffy. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with the sifted ingredients. Spread the batter into a greased 7 x 11 inch baking pan. Layer apples and batter with apples being the last layer.
3. Place last layer of apple pieces in rows on the batter with the sharp edges pressed in slightly. Sprinkle 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon on top.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for about 50 to 60 minutes, or until the apples are tender and the cake tests done.
I always have a successful baking turn-out. But as I’ve said I’m not really good with cakes, so this one didn’t pass with flying colors at all. It’ still edible, moist, and tasteful. But I burned the top and bottom of the cake. I overbaked it because every time I inserted a toothpick, it didn’t come out clean so I bake it longer. I guess next time I’ll just follow 50minutes of baking time. Also to prevent the top from charring, I suggest to cover loosely with aluminum foil for 20 minutes then remove it for the next 30 minutes of baking. My dad said that it wasn’t sweet enough but for me it was just right. The apples were sweet enough themselves. But if you want more sweetness, increase the sugar amount to 1 cup. One more thing I’ll change is the apple slices. I sliced them too thinly that I’m barely tasting the apple texture. If you want a chunky apple cake, make the slices thicker, about 1.5-2mm. I baked this cake in a 11×22x6cm dish (a deep rectangular dish), which is good to have more “meat” on it. If this has turned out exactly as the recipe said, the cake would resemble to a banana loaf bread differing only on the fruit used and the apple topping and layers.
Anyway, I suggest you try this recipe. I will again when I get my next batch of apples. And hopefully it’ll be successful the second time around.
Happy baking!
