Food * Rustic Apple Cake Recipe

Ah fall! It’s far and away these blue-eyed bakers’ favorite season. Labor Day comes and goes and BAM! We’re diving head first into everything autumnal. 

We’ve got the mulling spices on the stove, the pantry stocked with pumpkin, apples in the fruit bowl, cider in the fridge…and well, we’re borderline harassing the Starbucks baristas. What!? We need our pumpkin spice lattes.

And naturally, being the go-big-or-go-home, suck up every delicious drop of life kinda gals, we tend to go a little overboard in those first few crisp-fall-morning weeks. We probably don’t need to bake pumpkin bread and pumpkin donuts and apple muffins in the same week. Ok fine in the same day. And likewise, we probably don’t need to eat them all in the same week. Fall flavor overload.

But thankfully, having been down this road once or twice, we know that all we need to reinvigorate and get back on the fall baking bandwagon is a brief respite from the spice carnival of our favorite fall treats. 

We just need something a little simpler, that we can enjoy alongside that pumpkin latte or spiced apple cider without going into a full fall overdose. Something, dare we say it, with a little less cinnamon. Of course we still want something seasonal, and we’re certainly going to have to figure out a way to use those apples we picked in those crazed early days of fall fever. So this Rustic Apple Cake is rather perfect. It’s easy, it’s delicious…it’s noticeably absent of cinnamon, but still packed with flavor. And bonus, it’s called Rustic Apple Cake, which in our book means the messier the better, no frosting, glazing or icing. Just a delectable, apple-laden cake that can be eaten morning, noon or night while you sip that cider and ponder your next fall baking move.We’re thinking pumpkin...

Rustic Apple Cake

Serves 8-10

• ⅔ cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 ¾ cups flour
• ½ cup milk
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Zest of 1 large lemon
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 3 medium apples
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon demerara or brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and flour a 8 inch round cake pan and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, blend sugar and eggs together on high for a few minutes until very light and fluffy. Mix in the flour, milk, baking powder, baking soda, lemon zest and almond extract and mix until just combined. Pour batter into cake pan.

Peel and core apples. Dice one apple into small cubes and sprinkle over the batter. Thinly slice the remaining two apples and arrange slices neatly on top of the diced apples. Place small pats of butter on top of apples slices and sprinkle the demerara or brown sugar on top.

Bake cake for 45-55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the apples are dark golden. Cool cake in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Invert cake onto a plate and turn right side up back onto the wire rack to cool completely. Serve at room temperature plain or topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Store cake in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

post & photo by Blue-Eyed Bakers food contributing editors- Katy & Abby love to bake and share their recipes at Blue-Eyed Bakers