Swedish Apple Cake
It’s been cold and rainy for two days now. Last night we didn’t have near enough dessert options in the house, and there were Honeycrisp apples going to waste in the fridge, so I decided to make this cake in the 20 minutes before dinner.
My mom and I are dessert kind of people. Okay, that’s not entirely true, we love “real food” just as much as the sweet stuff, but we always have dessert. The rain has kept us from the grocery store, so all we had was some leftover Christmas chocolate and old peppermint ice cream. I was ready for something warm and home-baked, and this hit the spot.
Guess where it came from? Favorite Recipes from Southern Kitchens: Desserts, courtesy of Odie McReynolds from Bartlesville, Oklahoma. At first Odie seemed unusual because most of the contributers have a “Mrs.” or the rare “Ms.” before their names. Now that I’ve looked, every few pages there is a name without a prefix: the rare unmarried, non-housewife baker of the 1960s.
But hold on a second- is Odie a man? Could there be? A male contributer? Besides the dog from Garfield, I can’t really find anyone notable with the name Odie. This website says it is a boy name, and that parents completely stopped using it after 1930. Perhaps Odie McReynolds was the last Odie, born in 1930 and making Swedish Apple Cake in 1967. Oh the mystery…
Anyways! Back to cake. I love making cakes in the summer with fresh fruit and citrus and something like yogurt, buttermilk, or sour cream for moisture. Sometimes my less summery cakes (whether they be vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon, etc.) are a bit dry. This cake was not. The texture of this cake is absolutely perfect. I don’t know if it is the apples or if Odie just got the proportions really right, but it’s nice and crumbly without being dry, and gets nice and golden brown in the oven.
I only made two changes: butter instead of margarine and a little bit less sugar since Honeycrisp apples are so sweet. The cake is light enough that you could eat it for breakfast if you wanted. It’s wonderful with a cup of coffee. If you wanted to make it more decadent, it would be great with a cinnamon buttercream frosting. Otherwise, a little bit of whipped cream is perfect to finish it off.
Ingredients: 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, dash of ground cloves, 1/2 cup softened butter, 1 1/4 cups sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla, 3 cups of diced apples
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8-inch round cake pan with Baker’s Joy and set aside.
Sift together flour and soda in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, cream softened butter and sugar until slightly fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla, and salt and beat to combine well.
Beat flour mixture into wet ingredients gradually until just combined. Do not overbeat. The batter should be very thick.
Fold in apples with a spatula.
Pour batter into greased pan and bake for 30–35 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out with a light crumb. Check at 25 minutes. If the top of your cake is browning too much but it is still not done in the center, tent the pan with foil and continue baking until done.
If you are suffering from enduring dreary winter weather, baking yourself a cake is a pretty good remedy. This one is incredibly easy, and you can eat it all day long while you lounge around inside, binge watch TV or work (whichever you prefer), and stay warm.
