Fresh Apple Cake

When I was young (and through college) I was reluctant to try new or unusual foods. I'll blame my mother: she didn't even try making her own spaghetti sauce until after I'd left home, and her idea of a casserole was to add a can of Campbell's cream soup to just about anything. She was a good plain cook, but not particularly daring. (But she did enjoy eating in fine restaurants, a trait that I inherited from her.)

Cooking can be an art, and it can also be a way to feed people and make them happy. It's that simple. We at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen have presented an incredible  range of recipes for you to try, but we aren't offended if you don't try them all. That's how we learn about food and what we like to eat.

Why is this apple cake recipe such a favorite of mine? Because it's easy to make, hard to mess up, travels and keeps well, and just plain tastes good. It's from an early James Beard cookbook, but even he admitted in the book that he'd borrowed it from someone else.

FRESH APPLE CAKE

1-1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups shredded apples (do not peel -- the skin adds texture to the cake; the shredding disk of a food processor works very well)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Glaze:

2 Tbl butter
2 Tbl brown sugar
2 Tbl granulated sugar
2 Tbl heavy cream
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9- or 10-inch tube pan (8-cup capacity).

Combine oil and sugar in a bowl. Blend very well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Sift these into the oil-egg mixture and combine thoroughly. Add the raw apples. Mix well with a spoon or spatula, then add the vanilla. Pour the batter into the pan.

Bake for 1 1/4 hours, or until the cake tests done (tester comes out clean). Remove from the oven and let rest while you prepare the glaze.

Glaze: Melt the butter, sugars, and heavy cream mixed with vanilla in a heavy pan. Boil for 1 minute without stirring, then remove from heat.

Let the cake cool for a few minutes before removing it from the pan. Spoon the glaze over the cake while it is still warm.

A word of warning about the glaze: it’s addictive. We usually double the recipe, and fight over who gets to lick the pan. My daughter pours it over ice cream, and she adds chopped nuts and coconut. And sometimes we just skip the cake and eat it with spoons right out of the pan. Yum.

 


And a giveaway! Fatal Roots is the most recent book in the County Cork Mystery series.

I'll happily give all the credit to Ireland, which so many people fall in love with. Just leave a comment (with your email address).