Jane Bailey's Apple Cake

Apple Cake - made January 31, 2010

This recipe was given to me by Jane Bailey, an ASCSA friend I met some years ago. I'm not sure if she'd be okay with me publishing it so until or unless she gives me the greenlight, I'm going to hold off. I will say though that this is an excellent cake. I enjoyed last week's apple cake so much from the Baking by Flavor book that I thought I'd give another version a try. This is another recipe that I've had in my "Still Need to Make" folder for some time that, now that I've made it, I wish I'd made it sooner.

It's different from last week's cake in that it's more dense like a pound cake and not as cakey-cake (yeah, that's my technical baking term, haha). But it's delicious and quite easy to make. The outside is a bit crunchy and the inside is moist. I brought some to my parents' again today and my mom liked this one better than the one I made last week. She even liked the cream cheese frosting because it "wasn't too sweet" (that's my parents' highest accolade).

As a followup to the Cinnamon Apple Cake, one of my online friends made it and asked whether she could use the nutmeg in the jar instead of freshly grated like the recipe calls for. Yes, you can, although I would use a bit less than what's in the recipe. I'm not overly fond of nutmeg or overspicing a cake in general so I'd err on the side of caution. Also, one thing I recommended to her if you make something like a Bundt cake and have to bring it somewhere "whole", i.e, you can't cut into it and get a taste test slice ahead of time, is to put a small amount of batter in an individual-size ramekin and bake it along with the Bundt pan. The amount you need for the ramekin won't be missed in the regular Bundt pan and you can taste what you've made to make sure it's up to snuff before you have to bring it somewhere.