Fresh Apple Cake

Mix 3/4 cup cooking oil

1 1/4 cups sugar

2 eggs

Mix dry ingredients and add to above:

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. vanilla

Fold in:

2 1/2 cups grated apples (try 3 large and see if that’s enough)

1 cup chopped walnuts

This is the original recipe with instructions to bake 1 hour at 325 degrees in a loaf or tube pan. Mom noted that if I wanted a 9 x 13 pan, I should double the above recipe. That’s how I always make it.

When I made this last time, I made sticky toffee pudding sauce to go over it. In case someone didn’t hear me say this, the way they serve sticky toffee pudding (which is similar to this apple cake but made with dates) in a lovely tea shop in Thirsk is you put the piece of cake in a large-ish shallow bowl and pour in enough sauce to come up the side about half way. This is how I like it, of course, but look at me! Shelley makes do with a few spoonfuls – but I ask you, what fun is that?

Sauce:

Mix the following ingredients and bring to a boil:

1 cup butter

2 3/4 cups brown sugar

1 pint whipping cream

This makes a ton, so if you’re not like me, you for sure would want to halve this recipe. Oh, it makes my mouth water just to think about this. Of course, you can serve the cake plain, as I did for 40 years, but again – what fun is THAT?

So, anyway, this is a recipe Janet got from someone in her first husband’s extended family, Billie O’Brien of Albuquerque. Mom was hard of hearing and said this part of Lee’s family was so amazingly soft-spoken that she could hardly hear a word anybody said. One of these people was, I think, Lee’s uncle. He seemed like a very nice, mind-mannered man, and Mom was beyond astonished to learn that earlier in life he had gambled away his family’s home. Can’t imagine. And what kind of person would collect on a gambling debt that turned children out of their home? We are SO sheltered.

_____

Shelley wants the apple cake recipe I made some weeks ago, and I tried to get into our family recipe blog following the link (as I have previously been able to do) that Emma emailed me. I got a message that said I had already used the link, or some such thing. So I’m sending this recipe to you all hoping that one of you will take a few minutes and post it on that blog. And if you can tell me how to get into it again, I would appreciate it.

SOMEbody, please, find a way to put this on the blog.

_____

I love the email commentary from Susie. Such heritage.

- Jessica