Applecake

We live in a place where there are so many great varieties of apples grown right here in the state that the choices are overwhelming. In NYS, there's the usual mcintosh, cortland, crispin, empire, red delicious, fuji, gala but now, in addition, there's honey crisp, macon, snapdragon, and a few more that I can't even remember!

The go-to apples for baking are gala, mcintosh and cortland, in my opinion, because they bake the best in desserts and in cooking dishes.  These apples are also quite flavorful and really absorb the flavors of whatever you combine them with.  

To peel and core apples is sometimes a pain but they sell full corers and apple peelers at many stores.  I usually just cut out the core and then use the peeler to remove the apple skin for baking.

So that's what I came up with for a few quick tips on choosing the right apples for baking. Let's move on to the recipe for applecake! This may look difficult but it's absolutely not and should take you all of 30 minutes to prepare and then another 30-40 minutes to bake in the oven.  Be confident and you'll succeed and have fun trying this out! The flavors will smell amazing baking and a sweet aroma will fill your kitchen.   This may become your go-to fall cake!

Ingredients:

1 and 3/4 cup flour

1 stick butter, melted

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup of sugar

1/2 cup or light brown sugar

1 and 1/2 Tbsp ground cinnamon

1 Tsp vanilla

3 apples: 1 gala, 1 mcintosh & 1 cortland

2 Tsp baking powder

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9"x9" or 8"x8" square pan.  

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, both sugars, cinnamon, baking powder.  Add into the center of the dry ingredients, the melted butter, eggs, and eggs.  Mix completely together.  Core and peel the apples.  Dice two of the apples into smaller pieces and cut 1 apple into slices to use for the top of the cake.  Fold in the diced apples into the mixing bowl and ensure that the apples are spread evenly throughout the batter.  Add the batter to the greased pan and place the apple slices on top of the cake, in any fashion or design that works best.  I used the slices in two lines down the sides of the cake but feel free to experiment.  I added some additional brown sugar and cinnamon to the tops of the apple slices to sweeten them, just a bit.  Bake for 30-40 mins or until a toothpick inserted into the cake, comes out clean.  Allow the cake to cool and if you run a butter knife around the interior of the pan, separating the cake from the pan, after it has cooled, flip over the pan and it'll come out very easily onto a plate for serving. Enjoy the flavors of fall!