Apple Cake

So a few years ago my mother in a moment of her usual awesomeness was cleaning out her pantry and I was sent home with several boxes of Tastefully Simple products (there was a misunderstanding on her end about what the products were and she had a ton of stuff pretty much by acciedent). One of the delicious finds I made in this stash was a boxed mix to make apple cake (think "Just add apples and water!") and it was pretty tasty. It's been a few years since I used up the last of these boxes (yes, there were several) and it's taken until now for me to make the leap into homemade apple cake. After seeing a recipe on Bakerella's website recently, I figured it was time to give it a shot. Most apple cakes have nuts in them (as was the case with this recipe) and both Hubby and myself feel that nuts ruin too many good pasteries and desserts so I made some alterations (plus, can you see me realistically feeding dates to Hubby...yeah, I didn't think so either!) and gave it a whirl...

Apple Cake

3 cups apples, peeled and chopped

3/4 cup cooking oil (I had to use a combo of veggie and canola oil)

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking soda

Dash of nutmeg

Topping

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp milk

1. Mix together the oil and sugar using a stand mixer or hand mixer until combined
2. Add in egg and vanilla.
3. Add in about half the flour, the cinnamon, baking soda, and nutmeg until almost combined then add in the rest of the flour.
4. Using a spoon add in the apples (the batter will be very thick, but try and get the apples and batter pretty evenly distributed).
5. Grease a 9 x 9 inch pan and pour the batter into the pan using a spatula to make sure the batter spreads evenly.
6. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes
7. Allow to cool.
8. Before serving, heat the topping ingredients together on the stove until bubbly.
9. Using a skewer (or in my case the handle of my wooden spoon stirring the bubbly sugary goodness from Step 8), poke holes all over the cooled cake.
10. Pour the topping over the cake and allow it to soak in before spooning out servings (along with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream...oh my!)

This passed the Hubby "You Can Serve This To Other People" Test which my friends, is quite a feat indeed =) I may or may not have also had a slice for breakfast the next day...