Intro
Happiness is a Sunday with no plans. An early morning where the first few steps are taken towards the oven in order to pre-heat. And even though Ivy manages to put an entire tub of expensive face product in her hair and the boys spend all afternoon doing everything but cleaning their room, Sunday still delights.
I linger in the kitchen, make plans to read a new book, and mix together a few ingredients to make a simple apple “bread” from a recipe card tucked inside my great-grandmother’s recipe box.
Soon we’ll gather around the table for an early dinner which, unlike weekday dinners, took longer than 20 minutes to prepare. We’ll then head to church then come home to do more of the same. All these things help to ease us into the weekdays. Today we linger. Today we’ll move a bit more slowly and grasp the fading moments of the weekend. Monday brings routine, early mornings and work but we won’t think about that yet. For now Sunday is here, dinner is almost ready and there are a few more slices of grandma’s apple bread. I do so hope your Sunday was as restful as ours.
Chopped Apple Cake
My great grandmother referred to this as apple bread. I love that about her. I also love that nearly ninety percent of her recipes in her box are for baked goods. This cake is wonderfully simple and takes no more time to make than it does your oven to pre-heat. In the future I plan to experiment with some other flours and sugar but this morning I wanted this cake just as grandma enjoyed it.
1 ½ cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup oil (I used canola and walnut)
2 eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 cups peeled and chopped apples (about 2 medium)
Pre-heat your oven to 350*F. Butter a loaf pan and set aside.
Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar in a medium bowl. Add the oil, eggs and vanilla and stir until combined. Fold in the apples. Scrape batter into the prepared loaf pan and baked until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean, about 60 – 70 minutes.
Let cool 10 minutes before unmolding on to a wire rack. Let cool until just warm then slice.
Apple cake is my favorite thing to make when I have excess apples (which is typically the case this time of year). Your great grandmother’s recipe sounds wonderful… and what a lovely thing to make on a Sunday morning. Hope you had a great weekend!
Brian – I love them too. Especially when the apples stay big and plump. Grandma knew a thing or two. Happy Sunday to you, friend.
So lovely.
I like the sound of your Sunday, messy rooms and all.
Melissa – It is quite wonderful. PS I owe you an email.
Don’t you love having a grandmother’s recipes to pull inspiration and memories from? My maternal grandmother gave me her recipe boxes–and her old handwritten recipe books! They’re such precious items.
Apple cake is just total comfort to me. Can’t wait to make this. I just love your writing, so simple, yet so real and true. I try to ease into the work week as well. Happy Sunday evening! Hope you have a great week! 🙂
Thank you for posting. Our Sunday was similar. No plans…just a quiet family afternoon. This recipe seems so simple…it must be good 🙂
Don’t you just love the utter simplicity of oil-based cakes like these? There’s something so freeing about not having to pull out our heavy, modern mixers. (p.s. I love the part of your photo I can’t see as much as the part that I can.)
This is my kind of tea time cake. Thanks for sharing!
I love recipes that have been passed down! There’s just something extra-special about them, and this one looks fantastic.
Nice recipe and such a dreamy photo.
I positively adore 1. Lazy Sundays and 2. APPLE BREAD. I have an old recipe belonging to a dear friend’s mother that is a sacred fall tradition for us. Our two recipes are actually quite similar. I hope it brings you as much warmth as it does us! Sounds like it was just perfect 🙂
Your words so simply and beautifully describe the ideal Sunday, day of rest. Mine came pretty close yesterday, but was lacking apple bread. Thank goodness there’s always next Sunday.
Apple cake is one of my favorites! This looks delicious!
I love weekends, and I love the look of this cake.
I’ve recently been wanting to make a rustic apple cake with cream cheese frosting (sort of the apple version of this: http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-carrot-cake-177948).
How do you think this would take to frosting?
Thanks. Inquiring minds want to know…:-)
Tea – This cake would LOVE a cream cheese frosting. It’s quite tender and because of the large apple chunks would be hard to layer but a topping of a soft and tangy cream cheese frosting would suit this perfectly. In fact just the thought of it makes me want to bake up another loaf – which would be number three for the week. Oy.
We still have apples around even though we are well into spring here. They make cakes and loaves so moist. I made a beetrrot cake the other day and it was lovely and moist too.
I love grandma recipes!
Also, do you slice your pie when warm? That will cause it to fall apart a bit.
Lazy sunday and such a treat, can’t ask for anything better!! 😀
This is my kind of dessert. I am so into apples lately and I am definitely going to make this. Very cute about your Grandma as well 🙂
Simple sweet cake and simple sweet Sundays. The best!
That looks so lovely and sounds like the perfect thing for a quiet day like today.
Kacie
I’ve been looking for a good apple bread/cake recipe for slow Sunday mornings. Yours happened to arrive right on time. Who says one can’t find a sliver of laziness during the week 😉
Love the simplicity to this! What a beauty – and I especially love that this is your Grandma’s recipe 🙂
Yum! I have been making banana bread & sneaking in some apples…makes the bread super moist. This looks delicious!
Tried this recipe last night and I’m wondering if maybe there’s an error in the amount of salt in the recipe? Mine came out a bit salty.
STH – I used 1 teaspoon of kosher salt and liked the results but if you are using a table salt or sea salt you would only need 1/2 teaspoon.
Wow! I made this yesterday but “healthified” it a bit by replacing the oil with 3 large, very ripe mashed (nearly pureed) bananas, 1 full t. cinnamon and using 1/3 c sugar and it was amazing! I beat the sugar and eggs together in the beginning for about 7 minutes until really fluffy then continued as instructed. Thank you for sharing!! I am sure if I had made it as the recipe is listed it would have been even more amazing so thanks again!
Kelly – I LOVE the sound of your version.
Makes me want a month of Sundays 🙂 And a slice of this bread, mmm….
And, a yoda quilt!! That is beyond awesome. Quilts daunt. I’m officially in awe.
M
Dear Ashley – this post is so…..’like an article I wrote for a magazine’ about Sunday Brunch, my new family tradition. I’d so love for you to read it…..cause we echo the same sentiments! I love the simplicity and warmth of this cake!
I love this! Simple, perfect. I made apple bread last week but it photographed HORRIBLY so I need to remake and retake 🙂
I went apple picking three weeks ago and I still hadn’t done anything with them. When I read your grandmother’s recipe, I jumped up, diced up a couple of apples and mixed up the batter. The apple bread is now in my oven and my house is starting smell like fall. Of course I still have 50 odd apple still in the refrigerator. But thanks for the gentle nudge.
Thanks for the feedback. I was thinking of doubling the recipe, chopping the apples smaller, and making it in a springform pan with frosting on top. I’ll let you know how it turns out!
I agree about the use of less salt if going the sea salt or non iodized route (Kosher).
This recipe looks great – going to check it and try to whip something tasty up soon! Thanks for sharing!
I’ve been wanting to make an apple cake all fall- this might be the one! It looks delicious and sounds super easy.
So so so lovely… I’m going to make this using some of the Ambrosia apples I just bought. I keep on buying them.. need to use them!
Apple cake sounds perfect for this weekend afternoon tea. Glad to agree with that, happiness is randomness weekend for me too. Enjoy! 🙂
Ashley. I came upon your blog some time back and have loved your posts and recipes. They always come out perfect! I’m really a novice when it comes to baking but somehow you make it easy. I wanted to try this apple cake but wanted to substitute whole wheat flour and/or oat flour. Do you have any suggestions? I know the whole wheat can make it dry and hard. Thanks for you wonderful work.
I love your kids in the background of that photo! This cake/bread sounds marvelous.
yum! perfect recipe for this weekends desert! xx. gigi. food and beauty blogger @ http://www.gigikkitchen.blogspot.com
I love this post Ashley. I savor my quiet Sundays so much. They ready me for the week as they do you. And I have to say that I love the top image with the kiddos in the background.
Used a combo of applesauce and canola oil for the oil (1/2 and 1/2) and the cake turned out moist and delicious.
I made this last night. It really is wonderful. The top crisps up just nicely and it has a lovely flavor. Perfect for fall!
Yum, that looks awesome! I think every grandmother — or future/potential grandmother — should have her own version of apple cake (mine does, and it indeed came over with her from Russia, so you can take heart in the fact that there are stories just like the one you imagined, though the disparity is very funny). My grandma slices the apples very thinly and adds raisins, but it’s basically the same. Shana Tova!
lovely and yummy.
Sunday morning is my treasure. It let me do lots of missing thing, such as baking a new recipe.
This cake is baking in my oven as I type this and my kitchen smells warm and delicious. I have often baked my grandmother’s applesauce cake which has raisins and walnuts and is wonderful. But I’m enjoying baking another grandmother’s cake and I know it will be great. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Me again with the follow-up….the cake is absolutely delicious. I can tell it will get some heavy rotation in my kitchen!
This is an outstanding apple cake. I have taken it to several affairs and everyone wants the recipe. It is so fast also. My son and daughter have also taken it to church and school events and received many compliments. As parents of young children they have little time for baking and appreciate how fast this recipe is.
Your cake looks beautiful and your (or your grandma’s) idea of using walnut oil in the batter to compliment the chunks of apple is genius. I think a Sunday where everyone can just potter about at home, where everything slows down a touch and where something glorious like your cake is baked in the oven is an ideal way to spend a day
This is a beautiful post and does a great job of describing what I love about most Sundays…
I was so excited to make this as a Christmas gift. Luckily I tested it first. I bakes mine for 90 mins and its still very oily. ? I triple checked and I used the 3/4c called for… suggestions? The top layer though is divine.
This a very good & unique idea l like your post. thanks to sharing this cake recipe
This is the third time I’ve made this and every time, it’s a hit! I usually bake for a Church event once a month. I’ve been making this with 1/2 cup of Splenda instead of sugar (our Pastor is diabetic) and it’s still delicious! No one can tell it’s sugar free 🙂 Thanks for a keeper recipe!! Love this!!
Michele – I LOVE hearing this. Thanks!
I love apple bread and I recreated this recently with a few minor, but successful tweaks. I swapped olive oil for canola and added a little buckwheat flour. Thanks for the inspiration!
Hi! My husband and I made this on a rainy afternoon last week and we loved it! Thanks so much!
Emma 🙂
Coffs Harbour NSW in Australia
I made this for morning tea this morning and I was a huge hit! I will definitely be making this again!
LOL, “I” wasn’t a huge hit, “it” was 😉
Thank you so much! I have been searching online for an apple loaf cake and yours is perfect. Your great grandma definitely knew what she was doing. This is exactly the kind of homey loaf I was wanting, for the beginning of October.
just made this this morning, and it was wonderful! thanks so much for sharing. it was such a good thanksgiving breakfast!
love, arielle
Thanks for coming back here to tell me. I love that! I think I spied the cake on instagram and it looked beautiful.
Tried this recipe! Amazing! Thank you for this.
Since my previous comment in Sept 2014, I’ve made this cake for almost everybody I know, and everyone loves it. Even though it is perfect as is, I just made it with fresh cherries–I had a few handsful about to be overripe and didn’t want to waste them. Pitted the cherries and sliced them in half, and added a small handful of golden raisins soaked in a couple of spoons of calvados. The result was great! The cinnamon/nutmeg combination is nice with cherries. Thanks again.
Can this cake be frozen?
Yes, absolutely. Up to one month I’d say.
Excellent recipe!!!! My kids loves this cake very muchh. This cake is better also for kids than others. Thanks alot!!!
Yes you are right that happiness is Sunday with no plans. I love apple pies with vanilla ice cream on top so Id love to try this too. Ill still have my vanilla ice cream on the side.