Favorite Fall Dessert

Well, my two favorite fall desserts are apple crisp and pumpkin pie, but last week I made a very tasty apple cake in an effort to use up some apples that Anthony's mom gave me. It was tasty.

Apple Cake from Smitten Kitchen

6 apples (the recipe calls for McIntosh apples)

1 T cinnamon

5 T sugar
2 3/4 cups flour, sifted

1 T baking powder

1 t salt

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups sugar

1/4 cup orange juice

2 1/2 t 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.

A few notes: I used a bundt pan since I don't have a tube pan. Also, next time I'll do a better job distributing the cinnamon/sugar sauce that collected at the bottom of the bowl of apples. I ended up having too much liquid in the second round of apples, which dripped down the inside of the pan and got a little too dark for my liking. Last, but not least, it only took 1 hour and 15 minutes to cook in my oven.

Photo from Smitten Kitchen.