Apple Cake from the Lone Star State

Ready for coffee or a big glass of milk

Dough is stiffer than you're used to

Heaven in a bunt pan

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for healthy eating, as long as its done in moderation.  But, sometimes ya just gotta push those lily-livered, calorie countering, conscience messing, whiners away from your table.  Let ‘em take their guilt-troubled egos to the dry salad and celery stalk rabbit hutch, while you push your ponderous gut forward and gulp with all the gusto of a starving hog at the trough.

I’m talking fresh apple cake!  And plenty of it!  That’s the ticket.

What the hey!  Do apples even grow in Texas?  Hells, bells, ye of little faith and paucity of knowledge.  Pomaceous fruit grow all over the Lone Star State, although Texas can’t compete with Washington State, which produces 60% of the apples in the U.S.

For this particular apple cake, and generally for cooking with apples, the rule of my thumb is:  the more tart the better.  Tart apples have an intense flavor that overpowers their sweeter kin.  How many varieties of apple are there, anyway?  About 6000, counting hybrids and a few thousand non-commercial types.  Did you know apples are a member of the rose family?  I didn’t pick up on that in 9^th grade biology either.

Let’s get on to some cookin’ and then on to some eatin’!

2 Cups Sugar

1 1/2 Cups vegetable oil

2 Tablespoons vanilla

2 eggs, well beaten

1/2 a lemon

3 Cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons aluminum free baking soda

3 Green Apples, peeled, cored, and chopped

Heat the oven to 325ºF, or 165ºC

Oil and flour a bundt pan.

Put the sugar, oil, vanilla, and beaten eggs in a bowl and beat well.  Squeeze the lemon juice into the mix and beat again.

Ditch the electric beater and use a big wooden spoon to stir the flour mix into the bowl of sugar/oil. The dough will be stiff, but not to worry.  Now add the chopped apples and stir well.

Put the dough into the bundt pan and pop it in the oven.  Bake for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.  When a knife comes out clean, the cake is ready.  Slip a knife around the inside of the pan, and then let the cake rest for about ten minutes.  Now invert the pan on a plate and the cake will come out cleanly.  The aroma is going to tantalize your nostrils and take your kitchen back to grandma’s glory days!

Time to brew some coffee, slice some cake and lock the door to keep out the nosey neighbors and those suddenly hungry health addicts who just raced back from the rabbit hutch.