German Apple Cake

Mieke's birthday was last weekend, so you KNOW I packed up some goodies - including a homemade, from-scratch, German Apple Cake - and headed north to Michigan for the celebration. What a weekend for a birthday and a party by the pool! Good food, good friends and grandkids always make for great times and memories. 
 
The cake? Right up front, this is NOT a gluten-free recipe. But. It is one that has been one of Mieke's favorite desserts forever...well, just about forever anyway...okay, since the early 70's. It is one of the moistest, most down-home delicious cakes you will ever have the pleasure to eat. This is another one of those recipes that comes chock full of Maryland memories and of Peg, the woman who baked it.

Peg was a kind, loving and gentle woman with an enormous heart and sense of humor. Over our Maryland years, Mark, Mieke and I spent many hours around her kitchen table sharing lots of stories, lots of laughs and cracking more than a few crabs together with both of our families. Peg was every bit as sweet as her cakes.

And what a cake this German Apple Cake is! With layers of moist, lightly orange-kissed cake, freshly sliced and tender apples, warmly spicy cinnamon sugar, this is one cake that's as good for breakfast as it is for dessert. Trust me, many breakfasts back in Maryland - and right here in Pittsburgh - were made of leftover German Apple Cake the next day!
 
This is an easy cake to make. The only tedious part is peeling, coring and slicing the apples. BUT, if you enlist the help of a few apple peelers/corers/slicers, it would definitely streamline the process. Many hands make light work for a German Apple Cake!

From Maryland to Michigan, somehow it seemed only fitting to make one of Peg's German Apple Cakes for Mieke's birthday...and to start making sweet German Apple memories in Michigan. And we did. Happy birthday, Mieke!

Peg's German Apple Cake

• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 5 tablespoons sugar

• 4 cups apples, peeled, sliced
• 3 cups flour
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 large eggs
• 2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350.Grease and flour bundt or tube pan.  

First, mix cinnamon and 5 tablespoons of sugar together and set aside.

Mix cake ingredients for 4 minutes using mixer.  Pour a layer of batter, then a layer of apples - sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar mixture.  Alternate layers, ending with a layer of batter 2 more times.

Bake for 1 1/2 hours.


NOTE: When peaches are in season, try using slightly underripe peaches instead of apples...wonderful!