Apple Cake

The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah is traditionally ushered in with sweet, round-shaped foods. This apple cake is the perfect dessert for both Rosh Hashanah and the Sabbath. It is high, round, sweet, and takes on the unique flavor of the variety of apple(s) you choose. I like to use either all Jonathan apples, or a mixture of Jonathan and Granny Smith apples. I was given this recipe by my friend, Cindy Saylor, who originally found the recipe on a bottle of Wesson Oil.

Apples

5 large apples, peeled and sliced thinly (1/8-1/4 inch thick); Granny Smith are best.
2 tsp. cinnamon
5 T sugar, mixed and set aside while making batter

Batter

3 cups flour
1 cup oil
3 tsp. baking powder
2 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
4 large eggs
2 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
juice from 1 orange or 1/2 cup prepared orange juice

Oven Temp: 60 minutes at 350°F., then 45 minutes at 300°F.

Prepared pan: A 9-inch tube pan sprayed with vegetable oil spray

Mix apple filling ingredients.

The cake will have a better texture if you precook the apples a bit, but this is optional:
Heat 1 T. oil in a large frying pan. Add the filling ingredients and heat until the sugar is brown and the mixture begins to thicken. Remove from heat.

Put all batter ingredients in the large bowl of a mixer and beat at medium speed for 2 minutes until quite smooth. Layer in 3 batches in a tube pan, each layer beginning with batter and ending with apples. Over the top layer, pour any of the apple juices remaining in the bowl.

Bake for 60 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 300°, and bake an additional 45 minutes. Check with a toothpick or cake tester to be sure the cake is done (tester comes out clean) before removing from the oven.

Cool about 30 minutes before removing from pan. Loosen the cake along the side and around the tube with a table knife. Place a small cooling rack over the top of the pan, carefully invert, remove the pan, and invert again onto a serving plate. This takes some practice because the cake is dense and a bit fragile. It will fall apart if you try to unmold it while it is too hot, but it becomes too hard to loosen from the pan if it gets too cold - 30 minutes after baking is a reasonable compromise. When I first started baking this cake, my husband always lent an extra pair of hands for the unmolding.

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