Fresh Apple Cake

Cake drizzled with Butterscotch Glaze

For years, I searched for the perfect apple cake recipe.  My Aunt Mildred’s recipe was pretty close to perfect, and I used it most of the time.  Apple cakes made with cooking oil tend to have a slight oiliness to them.  I stumbled on an apple cake recipe that contained buttermilk; buttermilk makes everything better!  I hoped that the addition of buttermilk would yield a cake without the oiliness.  I tried the recipe, with a few modifications (of course), and it was very good, with a texture I liked!  On closer inspection, I realized that it the recipe’s proportions for the major ingredients (sugar, fat, eggs, flour, buttermilk) were double the amounts in the banana nut bread recipe that I have been using since college days. 

Apple Mini-Loaves

 

This was a light bulb moment! I had often used chopped apples or grated zucchini or grated carrots, either alone or in combination with bananas, in the banana bread recipe.  Armed with this knowledge, I continued to try different combinations of ingredients in the apple cake recipe.  As often as not, it is baked in loaf pans or mini-loaf pans.  However, it makes a gorgeous cake when cooked in a Bundt pan or two adorable cakes when made in two small, vintage tube cake pans.

Fresh Apple Cake

1 cup canola oil

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 cup buttermilk

3 cups chopped apples (peeled)

1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350° F.  Grease and flour a 10 inch tube pan.  Sift together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder; set aside.  In large bowl, mix together canola oil, sugar, and vanilla, mixing well using medium speed of electric mixer.  Add eggs to oil and sugar, and beat well.  To this mixture, add dry ingredients and buttermilk alternately, mixing well to blend, using low speed of electric mixer.  Stir in chopped apples and pecans.  Pour into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, and the top of the cake bounces back when lightly touched.  Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and continue cooling.  When cool, dust with powdered sugar or drizzle with Butterscotch Glaze.

Butterscotch Glaze

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

3 tablespoons milk or buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup powdered sugar, sifted

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter.  Add milk or buttermilk and brown sugar, dissolving brown sugar.  Bring to a boil and boil vigorously without stirring for 1 minute.  Remove from heat and add vanilla.  Stir in powdered sugar and beat until smooth, 3 to 5 minutes.  Drizzle over cake.

Variations:  This is a very versatile cake!  Here are some alterations I’ve tried; surely there are more out there that haven’t been tried yet.  I don’t see why you couldn’t use grated carrots or zucchini alone or with apples or bananas.

·        Bake in mini-loaf pans or regular sized loaf pans, or bake in two small, vintage tube cake pans.   Yield for mini-loaf pans:  22 to 24 loaves.  Bake mini-loaves for 30-40 minutes at 350°F.

·         Have overripe bananas that need to be used?  Add 2 or 3 bananas in place of part of the apples.  As long as you have about 3 cups fruit, it should be okay.

·         Instead of apples, use 2 cup canned pumpkin to make pumpkin bread.  This yields a tasty but pale product, which led to the next variation. 

·         Pumpkin gingerbread:  instead of apples, use 2 cups canned or home-prepared pumpkin; 3 teaspoons ground ginger in place of cinnamon; and use 1 cup sugar and 1 cup molasses rather the 2 cups sugar.  (Why 2 cups pumpkin when the recipe calls for 3 cups apples? There are about 2 cups pumpkin in a can; it turned out fine). 

·         Substitute plain yogurt for buttermilk, or use a combination of buttermilk and yogurt to equal 1 cup.