Stunts and Shenanigans: Make Your Own Junk Food

Happy Tuesday Darlings,

One of the rules in Michale Pollan's book "Food Rules" is to make your own junk food. Yesterday I was craving something sweet and in the spirit of using up what you have in the pantry and making my own 'junk food' I decided to make a cake. (Full disclosure-it was also super cold it and it seemed silly to bundle up a toddler just to go to the store for cookies).

I pulled out the recipe file, assessed what was available in the pantry and if we were low on a particular ingredient I determined what could be substituted without a total catastrophe and I came up with this Apple Cake. I must NOT so humbly say that this turned out to be super delicious and just the ticket for a cold, January day. It's moist, it has a bit of a spicy bite from the cloves, the brown sugar gives it just a hint of crunch on the top surface, it isn't overly sweet and cooked apples are just wonderful. It's mighty tasty fresh out of the oven and even more delicious the next morning with a little bit of plain yogurt for breakfast. Below is the original recipe (I think I found this years ago on allrecipes.com) with my modifications in bold. I think this is an easy enough recipe that you could modify the heck out of it to suit your creative tastes in the kitchen.

APPLE CAKE

INGREDIENTS
2 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil (1/4 C canola oil and 3/4 C Olive Oil)
2 cups white sugar (about 1 C white sugar and about 1/2 C dark brown sugar)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (a generous shake of ground cloves)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (a very generous teaspoon
2 cups all-purpose flour (1 C white flour and 1 C wheat flour)
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 cups apples-peeled and diced (I left the peels on and used enough to fill the batter-4 C seems a bit much)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). Grease and flour one 9x13 inch cake pan. (Err on the side of a small 9x13 pan).
2. In a mixing bowl; beat oil and eggs with an electric mixer until creamy. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat well. (I just used a fork and a bowl to mix ingredients).
3. Combine the flour, salt, baking soda and ground cinnamon together in a bowl. Slowly add this mixture to the egg mixture and mix until combined. The batter will be very thick. Fold in the apples by hand using a wooden spoon. Spread batter into the prepared pan.
4. Bake at 350 F (175 C) for 45 minutes or until cake tests done. Let cake cool on a wire rack. Once cake is cool serve with a dusting of confectioners' sugar or with a Cream Cheese Frosting. (I personally think frosting would be too much because this is already sweet enough but to each their own!)