Apple Cake

You will probably be seeing a lot of apple recipes from me lately, though I will try to space them out. Apples are one of my favorite fruits, but there is no doubt they are best this time of year. I fancy myself a wannabe apple connoisseur. The US grows about 100 varieties of apples commercially. Of course I usually stick to the usual Cortlands, Macs, Galas, and Granny Smith’s, but it is always a treat to go to a farm stand and find Honeycrisp, Paula Reds, Macouns, and Ginger Gold’s. I will admit though, I don’t get most of my apples at the grocery store or farm stand. No, I am a sucker, I pick them myself. You see, there is something immensely satisfying (er, crazy) about paying $12 admission to a pick-your-own farm in order to fill my baskets and then fork out another $4 a pound. Why I pay about $40 for fruit that would otherwise cost me $10 is a mystery likened to why Americans pay for bottled water when the tap is practically free and just as good.***

Anyhow, I have roughly one zillion apples, so in addition to this apple cake, I will be posting some other treats in the upcoming weeks utilizing the fruits of my harvest (pun intended).

***Disclaimer: I do not purchase bottled water. You shouldn’t either, it is the leading cause of plastic waste in the country. And don’t think you’re innocent because you recycle – that still uses energy. Click here and here and here. Ok, sorry, very off topic, back to your regularly scheduled cooking.

Ingredients

• 3 apples, peeled, cored, and diced
• 2/3 c. apple sauce
• ½ c. vegetable oil
• 1¾ c. white sugar
• 2 c. all purpose flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375.°
2. Sift together all dry ingredients. Using a wooden spoon, stir in vanilla, eggs, apple sauce, and oil until incorporated. The batter will be very thick.
3. Stir in apples.
4. Bake in a lightly greased and floured tube pan for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

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Chocolate Lovers… Beware

After the letdown that was Zebra Cake, my chocolate craving remained unsatisfied. Not in the mood to dirty up my kitchen baking something, I contemplated going to the grocery store to pick up a chocolate treat. Then I remembered I had no cash on me and my car keys were upstairs. Walking all the way upstairs and pulling out a credit card at the grocery store would have been far too much hassle. No, I couldn’t work that hard. I needed something easier. I needed chocolate cake from the microwave. Basically, you take a big mug, add a tablespoon of this, a tablespoon of that, zap in in the microwave, and presto, CAKE! I had a recipe back in college, which is lost now, so google helped me find one here.

Excuse the garish Ronald MacDonald mug, but here it was the biggest one I had. Here it is with just the dry ingredients added.

Add the egg, some oil, milk, and vanilla. Stir it up.

Three minutes in a 1000 watt microwave and here you go.

I didn’t even grease the mug and it popped right out.

Mmmm… I made a quick little cream cheese icing to go with it, yum!

5 Minute Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

• 4 Tb. flour
• 4 Tb. sugar
• 2 Tb. cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• 3 Tb. milk
• 3 Tb. oil
• Splash of vanilla

Directions

1. Combine dry ingredients in the mug (flour, sugar, and cocoa).
2. Mix in the egg, then add the oil, milk, and vanilla.
3. Nuke in a 1000 watt microwave for 3 minutes.

I mixed a little cream cheese icing to go with it… I took about a tablespoon of cream cheese and just added confectioner’s sugar until it was the right sweetness. I thinned it out with a teeny bit of vanilla extract and water. I think next time I make this I will try to do a half oil and half applesauce, but this was really good!

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Zebra Cake…Great Success…

NOT! Ok, so this cake looked pretty cool, and I wanted to give it a shot. I didn’t want to follow that recipe because WTH is a glass of sugar equal to? Instead of following the recipe from Real Epicurian, I googled my way across the internets until I found another one. If you’ve looked at the Real Epicurean recipe, you have probably noticed that there is a recipe conversion in the comments… well Captain Obvious missed that one until I went to write this post. Anyways, the recipe I followed was a little different (no Sprite, canola oil instead of olive oil, etc.), but I figured I would give it a whirl. It was not hard to make at all, and making the concentric rings was pretty simple as described here. However, taste-wise, my cake was pretty blah blah bland.. Don’t get me wrong, it looked nice and it was edible, but was really nothing special besides to look at. I think I will try this one again using the Real Epicurean recipe. I think the Sprite will give it a little zing. You may also notice that my finished product had a coarser texture than the linked recipe’s. I will try again and repost in the next few weeks.

Making the circles… a work in progress

Sorry so dark. This is the batter ready to go into the oven

Hot out the oven

Not bad.

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