Fresh Apple Cake, a la Grandma Holman

   A family favorite, one of my most requested fall desserts. This versatile snack cake makes good muffins and mini-loaves as well. This is better the next day and my family swears it is best the third day. This cake is especially loved by men for some reason and is a  husband catcher for sure. Not that you need a husband. I'm just sayin'.... If you wanted one, a husband that is,  this recipe is a lot safer than Internet dating.

    My Lovely Grandma taught me to make this one (she had a dandy husband, the esteemed "Grandpa") but the recipe originally belonged to her dear friend, Hazel (also had a husband ,but rumor has it he was something of a turd).  I never had the opportunity to meet Hazel as she passed away  long before I was even born, but every time Grandma or Mom would make this cake  they were reminded of her so I feel as if I knew her from their reminiscing and fond memories. I sure do thank you for the recipe, Hazel. It's a Humdinger!

Enough of that, Lets bake a cake!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Whisk together:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 heaping tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. salt

 Add:

• 1 1/2 cups cooking oil ( I use canola)
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract ( the real deal, not that imitation stuff)
• 3 cups peeled, chopped apples ( remember your handy-dandy pampered chef tool makes this a snap!)
• 1 cup walnut or pecan pieces

Stir together well and pour into 13x9"  greased pan ( I spray with Baker's Joy) or use mini loaf pan or muffin tins.

For cake, bake 40 min. at 350 degrees. For muffins or loaves, about 25 min oughta do it.


 And finally, be careful who you make this cake for....it's so good, you could end up with that creepy guy in the office mailroom making goo-goo eyes at you if you take it to work. Trust Me.

Additional note: If you wanted to substitute half the oil with some of the applesauce you made from my earlier post, this would cut the fat and still result in a  moist product. You might want to consider cutting the sugar by 1/2 cup if you do that since the applesauce is sweetened.

Apple Butter Like No Other

This is it....Jillbillys favorite "Thing To Put In Jars". You are about to create pure bliss . This is not a speedy- quick recipe, but it is easy! Patience is what makes this stuff Like No Other. People will marvel at this spread and tell you you should sell it, it is that good. The kids will enjoy helping on this one, it's rather astounding how all those raw apples turn into rich, brown, spicy goodness. Begin this project late on Friday night and Sat. morning you will wake up ready to create Deliciousness . Now go get your big crock pot out of storage......

Yes, I said crock pot. That's the secret to the richness in this one...slow and easy makes this the best I've ever tasted. You can do it on the stove top too, if you insist and are not blessed with the virtue of patience, but I don't believe the results are quite as divine.
  
See the Recipes page for the exact recipe , this is more of a how to tutorial.

You will want  red apples for this one , like Jonathon's or McIntosh but whatever grows in the backyard is probably fine. Just don't use a Granny Smith, not only is it the wrong color but it is way too tart for these purposes. Core and quarter all those apples but Do Not Peel. Fill up the crock pot with 'em and squeeze a lemon in. (Tip: if you squeeze a lemon cut side up the seeds won't fall into whatever you are making, they stay inside the lemon shell. Neat-o, huh?) Pour the vinegar and juice in with the apples , turn the thing on high and walk away for a couple of hours. Go put the kids to bed and have a glass of wine. A sweet wine like a Riesling goes well with apples and Friday night. After you've rendered yourself too tipsy to be useful in the kitchen, turn the crock pot down to low and go to bed, Wino.

Wake up refreshed, albeit slightly hung-over Saturday morning to an anxious kid(s),  ready to get on with it already and make the apple butter. Jeez, Mom, We've been waiting all night long.

Stumble into the kitchen , grab a wooden spoon and give the apples a stir. Marvel at the way they have all broken down .  Run it through the food processor or blender to get a truly smooth as silk consistency and return it to the crock pot. Add the sugar and spices , stirring thoroughly and love the way your house smells while it cooks another couple of hours to let all the flavors marry. By the way, an excellent sugar free variety can be made with Splenda. I am not a fan of sugar free or diet anything, but I swear you cannot taste the difference in this. Those delicious apples and rich spices completely disguise that weird aftertaste you often find in artificial sweeteners. I have made this for several diabetic family members and they were delighted. Someone needs to try it using Truvia and let me know how that works out. Even better,  I'll bet.
 This makes 4-5 pints of Apple Butter. I have always canned mine in the usual fashion using a water bath canner but you can store this in the refrigerator for a long, long time.

   If you were a good woman, you would have made a loaf of homemade bread or biscuits from scratch to eat with this apple butter , but you don't have to do everything like me. Maybe you are a man, in which case you are probably eating it right out of the crock pot anyway. Hey guys, try putting this on your well peppered pork chops at the end of grilling for your next tailgaiting party.

Get one of these to help you organize that mess of recipes the Jillbilly way!

Handy-Dandy Tip for Organizing Recipes

   Maybe you have a few cookbooks that you only keep around 'cause there's one or two good recipes in them...and that big 'ol book is taking up space in your kitchen. Maybe you have a pile of those holiday entertaining magazines that you hang on to 'cause there was an interesting dip recipe or cookie you think you'll make for company ( fat chance) . Perhaps you have a stack of misc. envelopes and scrap papers that you've jotted down recipes from some show on the food network on or snatched out of a dentists office magazine. Then there's your recipe box....perhaps you have a few recipes you use on a regular basis, but you've got to thumb through the 1000 other recipes for duck pate and some weird jello salad to find them. Sometimes the hardest part about cooking is figuring out what to make and then finding the recipe in all that mess and getting started.

   Listen up kids, I'm about to change your life. Slight exaggeration....OK, maybe it won't change your life, but it will certainly change that mess of recipes in your cabinets!

   This is so simple you'll wonder why you didn't think of it before. My dear friend Danna liked it so much, that after I told her about mine, she had me come on over and help her do hers. She is a Cancer, so she is always looking for ways to organize and simplify her life. (Hi, Danna!) I wonder if she has kept it up.....

   OK , here's what you need....click on the link above and get yourself a cute vinyl covered three ring binder with a fun print or get one that matches your kitchen decor. One that has a wipe able surface will be best, 'cuz lets face it, you are a messy cook.  Also, pockets on the inside covers will be good to have. Then go to Target or someplace like it and in the school supplies aisle get a bunch of those plastic sheet protectors with the write on tabs.  Take all this stuff home ...oh wait, don't forget to pick up some milk while you're there cuz you're probably out. OK, now, go home and pull all those cookbooks, magazines etc. out of the cabinet and stand there a few minutes overwhelmed by the horror.  Remind yourself that this is the last time you will have to feel this way. Resist the urge to drink all the cooking sherry you had stashed behind the cookbooks. It's going to be all better soon.

   Start by figuring out which "categories" you use most, or would like to keep handiest....limit this to less than a dozen or you'll go crazy trying to over organize. For example categories/sections might include: desserts, appetizers, casseroles, meats, and family favorites. Maybe you need an entire category for weird jello salads cause you make them a lot....whatever. Write those category/section names on those tabs and attach them to the sheet protectors . If they are different colors this will make it easier to flip through once it is done.

Stick the labeled sheets in the binder with a few of the unlabeled sheets behind each one and put the rest of the sheets in the back for adding to sections later.

    Now you're ready to really get it together. Face the mess of recipes on your kitchen table and dive in....take those cookbooks and find the one or two recipes you actually use or would like to use if you can ever find them  and either tear out the page or photocopy it. (I do not advocate ripping up Betty Crocker, Martha Stewart or Julia Child. Have some respect! Photocopy those pages but do not desecrate the integrity of those fine books!) Stick pages in your binder in the appropriate place. Go through those magazines and tear out the pages you want to keep. For goodness sake, throw the rest of the thing away. I found an issue of Better Homes and Gardens from 1984  in all mine. (The ads were hilarious by the way). Dig through that recipe box and pull out the few you use and slide them into the pages of your binder. Get that stack of misc. papers/envelopes you jotted recipes on and stick them in too. I also had a bunch of loose papers printed from the Internet...I'm sure you have printed out all my blog postings and have a special category just for those, right?

   Load up all those cookbooks and crud leftover and either pitch it , or put it in storage out of your kitchen. It's taking up valuable cabinet/shelf space .

   As you collect recipes in the future, you can simply stick them in the pockets of the inside covers in the binder to file later on. Every time you use your binder remind yourself to file a couple of these and you'll stay on top of it.  This thing is much more practical than standard cookbooks because its tailored to YOU and additionally, those wipe able plastic pages keep the recipes protected and clean . I have some written in family members handwriting that have since passed on and now that they are protected and I don't feel like I'm damaging them every time I use them.

   Protect this book with your life because inevitably some one will try to steal your secret recipes once they know you have them all together in a convenient place. It's probably that hag from the office that brings those crappy burnt cookies to the office holiday party and gets bent out of shape when people rave about yours and eat 'em all up. You know who you are , Lady.

Nifty Tool...used mine today!

Apple Peeler Corer Slicer. This is the apple peeler I was referring to in my previous post. Getcha Some!

Voila! Applesauce!

   You should grab your kids, take them to an apple orchard , pick some fruit and give applesauce making a try! Easy-Peasy and lots of fun!

   Two five gallon buckets full of delicious, beautiful, red apples were picked today. After transporting them home, grinning the whole way with excitement, they were washed and ready to be transformed into.....well, lots of things!

   Lets start with this: you have to get yourself one of those apple peeler/corer/slicer gadgets from Pampered Chef. That thing really makes short work of the whole process of "apple-ing"! It's a great model, all metal and very durable. This is the first time I've used mine and I will be recommending it all over town! Getcha Some! It's $31.50 at http://www.pamperedchef.com/

   Anyway, after I played around with that handy-dandy piece of equipment for a while, I had peeled about a gallon of apples so I figured Id better make some chunky cinnamon applesauce.

    Ahh, Let me tell you the house was smelling FINE! Wonderful, in fact!   Heres what I did: 

•  I took all those fabulous peeled, sliced apples and threw 'em in a big 'ol stock pot (sometimes called a dutch oven)
•  I added about a cup of water and let them cook down for maybe half an hour.
• Then I mashed them up with a wooden spoon good and added about two cups of sugar and a couple of generous teaspoons cinnamon.
• I then let the whole fantastic mess cook down another half hour or so and I delighted in the aromas while I cleaned up the peels and cores that were lying around
•  Gave it another spoon mashing till  it was a consistency I liked
•  Put it in jars , processed them ( I'll eventually get around to a canning tutorial on this thing, but not today ) and Voila! Applesauce!

 Next project? Apple Butter! Coming soon!

First Fruits!

Well kids , here I am! Have a little patience with me as I figure out blogging. We will be talking about food in no time .....i woke up this morning thinking about apples so stay tuned and we will have fun with fall's favorite fruit!