Apple Cake (or Bread)

by Bill Duncanin Recipeson Posted on

Barb’s famous Apple Cake is adapted from a simple recipe from Stribling Orchard in Virginia where we used to actually go and pick apples back in the 1980s. Over the years she added and adapted the recipe and with Allie’s prompting I’ve tried to capture the end product. For years, Barb would have an Apple Cake weekend in the Fall where she would produce dozens of these cakes to use as giveaways to her office and friends. The cakes freeze well, individually wrapped in tin foil like silver bricks of goodness.

The original recipe:

Barb’s hints and directions:

  1. Use tart apples like Granny Smith, Gala, York, Rome, or Macintosh. Not Red Delicious. Use about 4 apples to make 3 cups chopped.
  2. Use large or small loaf pans, not a tube pan. Pam the loaf pans before using (easier than greasing and flouring). This recipe makes about 2 regular loaves or 5 mini loaves. Can easily halve the recipe if desired.
  3. Use two big bowls, one for dry ingredients, one for wet.
  4. Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda. Stir in spices to sifted dry ingredients: cinnamon (1 Tablespoon, rather than a teaspoon), dashes of other apple pie spices as desired, such as ground cloves, nutmeg, ginger. Let dry ingredients sit and season the flour for a while.
  5. In a separate bowl, put together the oil, sugar, vanilla (one Tablespoon is plenty…it’s expensive, though artificial vanilla is OK if you can find it).
  6. Peel the apples and finely chop them. The apple pieces should be small, no large chunks. Barb uses an apple peeler but a simple vegetable peeler will do. She uses a cleaver and large cutting board to chop the apples.
  7. Shortly after chopping the apples (so they don’t get brown), use wooden spoon to blend the wet ingredients together. Add the eggs at the end and blend.
  8. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, blend all together.
  9. Add the apples and blend to make a final thick batter. Pour into greased (Pammed) loaf pans.
  10. Bake at 350 for about 45-50 minutes for large loaf pans, 35-40 minutes for mini loaf plans. Check with a testing pin or toothpick to make sure insides are not wet. Remove from oven and let cool completely (30 minutes or more) on stove top or cooling rack. Insides will cook a bit further and set.
  11. Remove and eat (yum!) or individually wrap loaves in tin foil to refrigerate or freeze.

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