Apple Cake

When I was a child, we took our lunches to school. My mother always baked something so that we would have a little sweet thing with our lunch. These sweet items would run the gamut from bars, fudge, cookies, or cakes. All homemade. She made several really great cakes. Actually, all of her things were great. She was, and still is a fantastic baker. I did not get that from her. I do okay baking (getting better with time) but I was not a “natural” at it as some individuals.

In time, I may get around to sharing more of her recipes. But one of my favorites, was her “Jewish Apple Cake”. Yes, that was the name of the cake. She found the recipe in the local paper. Probably around one of the Jewish holidays. Back then, the local paper would have sections devoted to special things like that – Easter, Rosh Hashanah, Christmas, etc. and no one thought anything negative about it. It was recipe sharing based upon different yearly events. Heck, one year when the Seventeen Year Locust came to town, they printed recipes using locust. The one I remember most was fried locust as an ice cream topping. My apologies. Not trying to get you to lose your appetite. But you get my point – lots of things got printed in the paper and Mom saved a lot of recipes over the years.

In this whole “PC” world we inhabit these days – that is code for ‘political correctness’, I am not sure if I am supposed to call this what it was called all of those years ago, or just call it Apple Cake. To me, simply calling it Apple Cake takes away from what it was, a Jewish Apple Cake made during one of the holidays. So to me, it is a recipe saved by my mother for Jewish Apple Cake. Call it whatever you like.

Recipe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Filling: 4 apples, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons cinnamon

Batter: 3 cups flour (all purpose works fine), 2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla, 2 1/2 cup sugar, 1 cup vegetable oil, 4 eggs, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 7 tablespoons orange juice.

Peel and chop the apples, add cinnamon and sugar, stir to coat apples. Set aside.

Mix all other ingredients for batter. Grease a tube pan. Alternate layers of batter and apples. Making sure to put batter on the bottom and apples on the top. Bake 1 to 1 1/2 hours depending upon oven at 350 degrees.  It is done when a butter knife comes out clean.

Notes: I use a stoneware bundt baking pan. I grease and flour the pan before filling and it bakes for about 90 minutes in my oven in the stoneware. If using organic apples, I do not peel them.

This cake is one that I feel tastes better the second day. If you can wait that long to cut it. If not, it is great for breakfast, snack with an afternoon cup of tea, or dessert after dinner. No matter now you slice it, it just tastes delicious.

Thank you for stopping by today and I hope you will give this recipe a go. If you do, please let me know how you liked it. It checks all of the boxes for me; not a lot of ingredients, super easy to assemble, and super tasty.