Hello and happy Canadian Thanksgiving!
I'm back in Ottawa for a hot minute and since my parents had a sudden urge to be good citizens and work at the advance election polls all weekend, I've had a lot of time to do some baking, see relatives and friends, and get outside to admire the beautiful trees changing colours this time of year.
On Friday evening, I went to my aunt and uncle's house for Thanksgiving dinner and I brought along this wonderful apple cake. I had made it a couple weeks ago with hand picked apples and it was so quick, delicious and easy (i.e. Breakfast at Midnight blog post prerequisites). The last time I made this cake it was in a bit of a different context...
The day I went apple picking just happened to be when the red moon made its appearance. So when my friends and I decided to sneak onto our campus golf course and watch this rare occurrence, I had the (not so) brilliant idea to bring along an apple cake... in an extremely heavy cast iron pan... in the pitch dark... where I ultimately had to jump a fence. Needless to say not my brightest moment, but it tasted even better after the job and a half it was to get to eat it. And I can say that the second time I made it it was just as tasty!
I found the recipe on Joy the Baker (love her!!) and I knew I couldn't go wrong when she suggested making it an a cast iron pan. I mean how fall-ish does that picture look?
Apple Spice Cake
Ingredients
✿ 1½ cups all purpose flour
✿ ¾ tsp baking powder
✿ ¼ tsp baking soda
✿ ½ tsp cinnamon
✿ ¾ tsp salt
✿ 6 Tbsp butter (just under 1/2 cup)
✿ 1 cup white sugar
✿ 1 egg
✿ 1 egg yolk
✿ 2 tsp vanilla
✿ ¾ buttermilk (you can make this by adding ¾ Tbsp of white vinegar or lemon juice to regular milk, then letting it sit for a minute)
✿ 4 apples, sliced into thin rounds and cored
✿ ¼ cup sugar and ¾ tsp cinnamon for topping
Directions
- Preheat oven to 375ºF. Once this is heated put a little butter in a cast iron skillet and stick it in the oven to melt it. Then spread it around with a paper towel to grease the pan.
- Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
- With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until well incorporated and lighter in colour (roughly 3 minutes).
- Add the egg and yolk and beat for 1 minute, followed by the vanilla.
- Turn your mixer to low and add in half of the flour mixture.
- Add the buttermilk and then the remaining flour. Beat until just incorporated.
- Spoon the batter into the greased pan and then top with ALL THOSE APPLES!!
- Sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar mixture onto the apples.
- Bake for about 35-40 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean from the centre of the cake.
- Preferably paired with vanilla ice cream and enjoyed under a cozy blanket, while listening to soft acoustic music.
Enjoy fall, my lovelies!!
xox
