OMGSNAX!

so we’re in the midst of the days of awe (aka the high holy days (aka the ten days between rosh hashanah & yom kippur, inclusive)), & tradition dictates that, at this time of year — rosh hashanah, anyway, as yk is a fasting holiday — we consume apples & honey (tapuach v’dever) for a sweet new year.

my mom used to make this apple cake all the time when i was in grade school & junior high; we’d eat the leftovers for breakfast. (it’s fruit, of course it’s healthy!) she got the recipe from my sister’s 2nd grade class — each of them brought an apple-related recipe in, & they made little laminated apple-shaped cookbooks. this particular recipe was from my sister’s best friend’s family.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups finely chopped cooking apples
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup chopped walnuts

METHOD
preheat oven to 350 F.

combine flour, soda, salt, & cinnamon. set aside. combine sugar, oil, egg, & vanilla. add apples. add dry ingredients. add walnuts. bake for 40 to 45 minutes in a greased 8×8 pan.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
cooking apples, according to my mom, are jonathan or granny smith. jonathan happened to be on sale at the grocery store, so although they were tiny (baseball-sized!), i bought a bag & peeled & chopped my little heart out. (yes, i peeled the apples. even though the recipe didn’t call for it, i seemed to remember my mom peeling them when i was a kid.)

scrap pile

apples, sweetened

i think maybe it was a little undercooked — or maybe i should’ve cooled it on a rack instead of in the pan — b/c it was a tad bit mushy, but it tasted great (especially warmed up with some ice cream!) so there were no complaints. daniel even said — as he ate his third piece — that he’d let the nut infraction slide.

delicious apple cake

 

 

“Harvest Apple Cake” from my sister’s 2nd grade class’ apple cookbook

my boyfriend is irish. today is st patrick’s day. enough said.

INGREDIENTS
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 pounds rome beauty or winesap apples, peeled, cored, & sliced
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons irish whiskey
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
pinch salt
1/4 cup irish oatmeal
1/4 cup toasted, chopped walnut pieces
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
irish whiskey cream (recipe follows)

METHOD
preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. lightly butter an 11 by 7-inch baking pan & set aside.

in a large skillet, melt 3 tablespoons of butter over medium-high heat. add the apples, lemon juice, 1/2-cup of the brown sugar, & 1 tablespoon of the flour. stir well, & cook 5 minutes. add the whiskey, cinnamon, cardamom, & salt, stir well, & cook for 1 minute. remove from the heat.

in a large bowl combine the remaining flour, oatmeal, & remaining 1/2-cup sugar. add the remaining 5 tablespoons of butter, & with your fingers or a pastry blender, work the mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. add the walnuts & mix well.

place the apple mixture in the greased pan & sprinkle the crumb mixture evenly over the top. bake until golden brown & bubbly, about 35 to 40 minutes. serve hot with the irish whiskey cream:

1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons irish whiskey

whip the cream until it begins to form soft peaks. add the sugar & whiskey & beat until stiff peaks form. cover & chill until needed.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
again with the baking pan size issue — well, 9×9 is approximately the same as 11×7, right? let’s hope so, b/c that’s all i’ve got that’s even close.

& deep breath, b/c for such an easy recipe, i made a shocking number of omissions, starting with: cardamom. b/c $12 a bottle = no. especially for a measly quarter of a teaspoon. i’m sure it adds something, but sing it with me: $12.

i used pink lady apples b/c they were the only appropriate baking apples i could find at dierberg’s last night around 9pm. totally ignored the merest hint of a suggestion of walnuts, as it’s been established previously that i apparently can’t stand them. & the irish whiskey? i don’t even know where to start. so i didn’t. i’m not too broken up about it b/c i generally can’t stand the taste of liquor in desserty things, but i just thought i should put it out there that i really screwed around with the recipe a fair amount.

so let me start by saying that there’s no way this so-called “20 minutes” of prep time could be accurate in any universe that involves peeling 2 pounds of apples unless it’s a magic universe where apples have skins like bananas. but here on earth, they don’t, & so 20 minutes of prep time is more like an hour when you factor in all the tedious peeling. which, fine. i’m just saying.

peeled apples + bag of skins

cooking the apples in the skillet was a minor challenge, what with my burners being horridly off-kilter & my skillet verging on too small, but i persevered & it worked out just fine. the brown sugar/butter combo totally turned into this syrupy bubbly awesome delicious mess & it smelled, as my grandma would say, heavenly. for serious.

uncooked apples

cooked apples

& apart from all the previously mentioned omissions, it’s pretty much your standard apple crisp.

the topping

is it wrong that i’m way more excited about making egg rolls next week than i am about the apple crisp that, let’s be honest, is still baking in my oven as i type these very words at 637pm on the 17th?

i totally planned to make the whipped cream b/c my friend joyce made her own whipped cream one time a few years ago & it was really, REALLY good — but i don’t feel like dirtying another dish, nor do i feel like figuring out this electric hand beater my mom gave me last weekend. i DID buy the cream, so i’ll do it pretty soon — but not tonight.

finished apple crisp

epilogue: SWEET.
daniel said: “not just sweet — it’s ‘dude! sweet!’”

almost TOO sweet, actually, which means my grandpa would love it.

 

 

“Apple-Oatmeal Crisp with Irish Whiskey Cream” from Emeril Live, 2001.

my sister’s second grade class did a project on apples &, in the process, compiled a cute handmade apple recipe book featuring one recipe per student. my mom made an apple cake recipe from that book fairly frequently while i was in middle school, & it was damn good.

this is not that recipe.

i’m not really sure why i didn’t go with a tried & true. after all, i’ve never made that apple cake before so technically it’d be appropriate for OMGSNAX!, but somehow, when push came to shove, ok, well (a) i was planning to make these sweet potato gnocchi tonight that just so totally didn’t happen but which i’m pretty sure i’ll do tuesday after my stats class, (b) actually, i was INITIALLY going to make asparagus potato puffs, but then my sister wouldn’t get me the potatoes when i didn’t have enough, & the aspargus was all fat & woody looking, & then i left them in the car all day when we had our warm spell last week & they got wilty & yucky, & (c) i’m lazy, & even though i’ve called my mom three times in the last four hours, i didn’t want to ask her for the recipe. i don’t know, don’t ask.

so i got this recipe out of a vegetarian cookbook i’ve had forever that i’ve been looking through a lot lately (hello, future attempt #3 at red bell pepper soup!) & it seemed pretty easy & daniel likes apple cake, so, you know, i’ll make him try the gnocchi another night, right?

INGREDIENTS
2 cups dried apples
1 cup freshly pressed apple juice
1/4 cup unsweetened, unseasoned homemade apple butter, or store-bought
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour or kamut flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

METHOD
heat the oven to 350 F.

place the apples, apple juice, apple butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, & cloves in a large saucepan. bring the mixture to a simmer over medium-high heat. lower the heat to medium & continue simmering, stirring often, until the apples soften & the mixture thickens slightly, about 5 minutes.

meanwhile, place the flour & baking soda in a large mixing bowl & combine with a whisk. pour the apple mixture into the bowl, & stir quickly & thoroughly. (the mixture will foam as the baking soda reacts with the fruit juice.) pour the batter into a nonstick or lightly greased 7- to 8-inch round baking dish. bake until the cake is firm, & a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.

DEVIATIONS & OBSERVATIONS
ok, freshly pressed apple juice? homemade apple butter? i’m so sure.

yeah, i’m not even gonna address that.

but to add insult to injury, of course i screwed up & went to the wrong grocery store. dierbergs (or whole foods or wild oats) would’ve had some of this “unsweetened, unseasoned” apple butter, but schnucks? oh no. so i got stupid musselman’s apple butter that’s both sweetened & seasoned with cinnamon & i figured, ok, it’s a quarter-cup, it’ll probably be ok. i thought about cutting back on the cinnamon in the recipe but decided against it.

also, ok, i just thought i’d admit up front that i just don’t have any kind of circular baking dish. but i did the math & i’m pretty sure a 9″ x 5″ loaf pan is about the same. ish. so, you know.

45″ sq. is pretty close to 50.25″ sq., right?

that said, dried apples? very sticky. i’d imagined dried apples as more of an apple chips type thing, but the kind i got were superduper sticky. which makes sense, i guess — i mean, apricots are sticky, prunes are sticky, raisins (ew ew ew perish the thought!) are sticky. but still. kinda messy.

chopping apples

before the “apple mixture” became a mixture

everything else post-chopping went pretty much according to plan, although i have to say that the “foam” that the recipe talked about was kind of a let-down. i guess i expected something along the lines of a bath bomb or chemistry experiment, but what i got was a low-level fizz that, although daniel took a photo of it, i can’t show you b/c it was all blurry.

our attempt at an “action shot” of the foam that wasn’t

a delicious batter

does it taste good? yes. is it as good as the cake my mom always makes? no. but it’s pretty close. & that’s not bad.

with caramel ice cream

 

 

“Apple Pudding Cake” from The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook by Diana Shaw, © 1997.