A New Family Favorite

It all started with a trip to a small apple orchard. See, the Flynn's in our ward (church congregation) here in Omaha have the sweetest little orchard. Every Fall they invite our ward members to come and harvest some apples to take home and some to make (on-site) fresh cider with. It is something that families look forward to every year. This year we took our Young Women to pick apples and make cider. The pie apples didn't have such a great year, but the Red Delicious were plentiful. I picked a modest sized grocery bag to take home to my family and then jumped in with the ((leaders)) girls, cutting and washing the apples to go into the apple press. We cut apples for what seemed like hours....not because we weren't having a good time chatting and catching up on each other's lives...but because after gripping that many apples to cut out worm holes and bruised spots (these are organic apples after all) my hands ached!! Whining aside we got enough apples into the press for all 30 some girls and leaders to get about half a gallon or so of cider. Success. While we were chopping and such one of my sweet friends told me about her family's favorite apple cake. They all like it so much that they even request it for birthdays! ((Insane, in my thinking....aren't ALL birthday cakes chocolate??)) She said she had made this apple cake using some of the fresh apples she got from the Flynn's little orchard and it was so good. Well, why not...So I asked her for the recipe. I read through it and was totally confused. It's a bundt cake and has a caramel sauce that goes over it. The recipe says to pour the sauce over the cake while it is still hot in the pan. In my mind I just could not figure how the yummy sounding caramel was to get to the top of the cake if you put it all over the bottom...I know...But that was my thinking. I was doing at least ten other things when the first cake came out of the oven. I forgot the instructions and inverted the cake on a cooling rack...cause that's what you do with cake....and finished the other things that were filling my day. By the time I got back to the cake it was mostly cooled. Rats....Not wanting to miss out on anything caramel AND apple, I went ahead with the sauce and poured it over the cool cake.....and scooped it up and poured it again, and again. Yep. I did that. My family loved it. We all did. It was that good. Well three days later (yes....three....don't judge) I tried again. This time it was 6:00 in the evening and we were looking for something yummy.....Caramel Apple Cake was whipped up and put in the oven. This time I was on top of the caramel sauce-on-the-still-hot-cake-still-in-the-pan. The only problem this time was the lateness of the hour. See, we are early risers around these parts and eating cake at 8:00 at night just isn't what we do (very often). As soon as the caramel sauce was on the second-attempt-cake (just because cake #2 just doesn't sound good at all) I put it in the fridge so it could cool faster....and we could cut into it faster. The only problem with that logic is that the caramel sauce cooled too fast.....Meaning, it stayed on the outside of the cake instead of soaking into the inner deliciousness of the apple cake. It still tasted fabulous....Oh my, did it ever. Fast forward a week to today. Sunday. I started earlier in the day and by 6:00 p.m. we had eaten half of the dang thing between the four of us. Yes, it is that good. I've never done an actual food post with pictures and everything....and today is no exception....But I will give you the recipe (including the changes I made for my family).

Apple Mountain Cake (the original name)
Caramel Apple Cake (what we call it around these parts)

3 eggs
1 1/2 c. oil (I substituted 3/4 c.oil for 3/4 c. unsweetened apple sauce)
2 c. sugar (I used 1 1/2 c.)
3 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda
2 tsp. cinnamon ( I added 1 tsp nutmeg also)
2 tsp. vanilla
3 c. chopped apples
1 c. chopped pecans (I leave these out because half of my family are haters.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix eggs, oil and sugar; blend well. Add flour, salt, soda and cinnamon to egg mixture. Add vanilla, apples and nuts. Pour into greased tube or bundt pan. Bake 1 hour and 10 minutes. While cake is still hot, pour hot topping over it in pan. Let cool. Remove from pan.

TOPPING:
1 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. milk
1/2 c. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
Combine all ingredients; boil slowly 2 1/2 minutes. Pour immediately over cake in pan.

Here it is. It's a pretty easy recipe. But man-oh-man is it good. Jim has even asked for it for his birthday cake. I hope you make this cake....A big shout out to Marjorie....Thanks for the recipe. It has changed our lives.....*wink*