The Cake's In The Oven

Yes, that is a cake with a large piece gone--just a testament to how good it is! (Or maybe how impatient I am.)

You would think with the heat of this summer, cooking, baking, and anything else that generates more heat in the house would be the last thing on my mind.  Not true.  Saturday I went to a tea room in Canton, Kansas, with a group of ladies from my church for lunch and there was NO DESSERT offered.  Crazy!  So, now,when I should be cleaning my house, I turn to baking and I am blaming the tea room in Canton for this.  Probably would have saved me a few calories if they'd just offer me a piece of chocolate cake or some cherry pie.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it for now.

So with that wonderful introduction are you still there?, I will tell you about a wonderful cake recipe that is new to me as of last night.  For those of you who have been to Ikea and had their apple cake, this is pretty close.  I consider it guilt-free even though it does have a stick of butter, Paula Deen, can you hear me? because it is loaded with apples.  I wish I could site the source of this wonderful concoction, but I haven't got a clue.  It was something I stuck in my recipe file and stumbled across while looking for something else.  Can you relate?  Please, please, tell me you can.

Loaded Apple Cake

1/2 c. butter, melted and cooled

3/4 c. all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp. baking powder

4 large apples

2 large eggs

3/4 c. sugar

3 Tbsp. rum

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1.  Arrange oven rack in center of oven and preheat to 350 degrees.  Generously butter 8-inch springform pan.  Line cookie sheet with parchement paper and place prepared cake pan on cookie sheet pan.

2.  In a small blowl, stir flour and baking powder with a wire whisk. 

3.  Peel and core apples.  Cut into chunks 1- to 2-inches.

4.  In medium bowl, whisk eggs until foamy.  Add sugar and whisk 1 minute to blend.  Whisk in rum and vanilla.  Gently whisk in half of flour mixture until incorporated, then half of butter; repeat.  With rubber spatula, fold in apples until well coated.  Transfer mixture to pan and spread in even layer.

There is very little "batter" to this cake and this is what it looks like after adding the apples to the batter.  It just barely coats the apples, hence the guilt-freeness of it.

This is the cake just before putting it in the oven.

5.  Bake cake 1 hour 15 minutes or until top is golden brown and knife inserted deep in center comes out clean.

6.  Transfer cake to wire rack and let cool 5 minutes.  Run blunt knife around edge of cake and removed side of pan.  Serve warm or cooled.

Each serving contains about 300 calories, 3 grams of protein, 42 grams of carbohydrates.

Now, for a few cook's notes.  I added 3/4 teaspoon of Saigon cinammon (stronger than most cinammon I've experienced and available at Sam's) and 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg.  I do not like unspiced apple pie and thought it might be true of this dessert too.  I was right at least in my own mind.  I also had no dark rum and substituted light rum a favorite drink of choice with a coke and a lime.  I am sure you could omit the liquor and use more vanilla because vanilla has such a high alchohol content by nature, but I am not sure of the porportions.  You could Google it, if needed.  I also used salted butter, the original recipe called for unsalted and then asked you to add salt.  I always use salted butter unless the recipe has no salt at all in it.  That just how I roll with baking and will be true of most of my recipes on this blog.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do and I would love to hear comments about it.  I think you could do it with other fruits and could add raisins, nuts or different spice combos.  As always, thanks for reading.  Robin