Fresh Apple Nut Cake with Citrus Butter Glaze

Posted: January 29, 2015 | Author: Becky Johnson | Filed under: Uncategorized |5 Comments

(Becky, the Mama. )

If you have not figured it out by now,  I have ADD.  More specifically, I have what my friend and pioneer brain doctor, Dr. Daniel Amen, diagnosed as the Inattentive Type of ADD.  (Press the Pause Button here for a minute: Thank you to the wonderful, brilliant, kind Dr. Amen for his review of our newest book, Nourished. His fabulous blurb adorns the cover!)

The Inattentive Type of ADD is less likely to be hyperactive.  Which is certainly true for me.   Put me in a hammock and tell me it’s time for a nap, and I am at my happiest.

Our types tend to be under-focused on things like to-do lists or anything smacking of organization; and over-focused on things we find interesting, absorbing, fun or creative.   I can get so lost in a new idea for a book, blog topics, photography, recipes, decorating projects, researching the history of a vintage find, or helping a friend — that hours pass like minutes.   I once got out of the bathtub one morning, wrapped in a towel with my hair dripping wet, sat down at the computer with an idea for a book chapter, then got totally lost in the flow. When I looked up, to my absolute shock —  my kids were home from school, and I had not moved, dressed, or eaten for 7 hours.

We also tend to lose and forget things with incredible regularity.  As my husband says, “It is a full-time job just being a Becky.”

One other quirk I have is thinking I am out of a particular grocery item, and then buying it repeatedly, ad nauseum.  Until I suddenly realize I have 13 jars of mustard, 6 bottles of sesame oil and 5 heads of cauliflower. This week I discovered that I had unwittingly socked away FOUR  big bags of apples.  The benefit of these surprising surpluses is that it kicks in with my creative juices as I come up with a dozen creative ways to use up the overstocked item.

Today’s recipe comes courtesy of my apple surplus and daydreaming of a fresh apple cake made from an old church cookbook.  I’d lost the cookbook somehow, but my former mother-in-law Beverly was kind enough to send it to me this week so I could recreate this moist and mouth-watering dessert.  It calls for 4 cups of fresh apples, rough chopped in fairly large pieces,  plus a cup of pecans.  These goodies are bound together with a sweet and cinnamony cake batter.   I made a few small tweaks to the original recipe, which I think enhances the flavor.  You can use a bundt cake pan, as I did in the pictures shown, but  you have to grease and flour it really well, and even so there is a good chance the top of the cake will stick here and there to the pan and you’ll have to patch it a bit.  (As I did here:)  It pops out much easier if you bake it in 2 bread pans, plus you can give one away to a friend or freeze it for later.

Besides being perfect for an afternoon snack, we also love this cake that is chocked full of apples and nuts for breakfast, with a couple of slices of turkey bacon and a cold glass of milk or hot coffee.

FRESH APPLE CAKE

4 cups 4 1/2 cups  apples, peeled and coarsely chopped (leave some the size of a teaspoon)
1 3/4 cups sugar (I prefer raw sugar)
2 eggs, separated
3/4 cup canola or coconut oil or other healthy oil of your choice
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon  baking soda

2 t. baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon cinnamon
l cup pecans or walnuts, broken into fairly big pieces

Directions

Mix chopped apples with sugar and let stand in a bowl.
Beat egg whites till stiff, add yolks and beat, add oil and mix well.
Combine sugared apples and oil-egg mixture.  Mix well by hand.
Stir dry ingredients together.
Add dry ingredients and nuts to apple mixture.
Pour into  VERY well-greased and floured Bundt pan or tube pan, or 2 bread pans.
Bake at 350 degrees for one hour,15 minutes. (Just one hour if you bake it in bread pans).

While cake is still warm to the touch, but cooled some, loosen the edges with a sharp knife.  Turn over onto a plate and drizzle with the following glaze:

3 T. melted butter

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

Juice of 2 clementines, or 1 orange, or 1 lemon

Mix well in a small bowl with whisk or fork.

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