{mom's apple cake from the smitten kitchen}

i was chatting with my long-time friend lydia about ideas for thanksgiving desserts and she shared with me that a friend of hers recommended a famous recipe by the smitten kitchen blog. now that is one great blog with an amazing following!

the recipe was called "mom's apple cake". there were hundreds of raving reviews about this recipe so i had to try it out. anything with the word {mom} in the recipe makes me want to give it a whirl in the kitchen...



{ok, i have to share how much i love that i learned how to post these larger pictures for my blog!! yay! its almost like you can eat it off the blog page!}

overall, i have to agree that it is a delicious cake and a great dessert for thanksgiving. baked apples? cinnamon? coffee cake base? mm..lovely combination. the cake was very moist and flavorful and tasted delightful when it was warm and right out of the oven. and while it was baking in the oven, {the smell} was just. heavenly. my only qualm, because i tend not to enjoy super sweet desserts, was that the dessert was super sweet. i couldn't get a good sense of whether the guests really loved it or were just polite. heehee. if i would make it again, i would definitely cut the sugar by half or at least to only about 1 1/4 cups. and, since the tube pan that i had ordered from amazon to make the apple cake was sitting all lonely, locked in my apartment building's front office on thanksgiving day, i decided to pour most of the batter into a springform pan and small amount of it into a loaf pan out of uncertainty as to how high the cake would rise, it turned out just fine as you can see from the pictures. all of it would have fit nicely into the springform pan.

here is the recipe below. depending on your love for sweets, adjust the sugar accordingly in the batter :) enjoy!

Mom?s Apple Cake (recipe link from the Smitten Kitchen)

6 apples, Mom uses McIntosh apples
1 tablespoon cinnamon
5 tablespoons sugar

2 3/4 cups flour, sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar (like i mentioned above, the dessert was sweet to me, so if i was going to make it again, i would cut it to either 1 1/4 cup or 1 cup)
1/4 cup orange juice
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a tube pan. Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon and sugar and set aside.

Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Spread half of apples over it. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a tester comes out clean.

{would i make this again? yes}