Thursday, January 6, 2011

Ma Chisholm's Apple Nut Cake

I love my Mom. She's basically one of the coolest, funniest, and most surprising people I know. This holiday I made it down to see the whole Chisholm crew, and I managed to sneak in some boozey cooking and baking with the lady who taught me everything I know.
Within the first 3 hours of walking through my parents' front door, I found myself  sweatpants clad, wearing a Santa hat, and holding a bloody mary. My mom popped up from around the corner clutching her favorite cookbook, and flipped to the dirtiest, gunkiest page with an excited grin.
Soups and Samplers a 1962 tome which to the naked eye looks like any 10 cent garage sale cookbook. Really it's a turdy looking gem--chock full of rock-solid no-fail recipes.
The apple nut cake in question sounds like nothing special, but this version yields extremely moist and flavorful chunks that melt in your mouth and warm the cockles of your bitter frost-bitten heart!
...and let's face it, who hates the smell of appley spicy goodness filling your house!? On Christmas fer crying out loud!?

 

METHOD
First you need some fuckin' apples. Personally, I prefer the tart variety,  as does my family. The damn granny smiths needed skinnin', and since peeling apples by hand is for losers, my Ma pulled out our handy-dandy apple peeling machine. It takes about 7 seconds per apple and it's a pretty good investment (BONUS! you can use them for any fruit of veg that needs to be skinned). 
Once bald, hack up the apples, roughly chop up the delightfully greasy walnuts, and combine both in a large mixing bowl. I added a generous drizzle of lemon juice, threw in the sugar, oil, and water to keep the apple chunks from drying out or getting oxidized.
It's so easy to make this cake as I was pretty buzzed, and I still managed to not mess it up!
You finish up by dumping the rest of the sifted dry ingredients into the mixing bowl, give her a good stir, and pour into your desired (greased) cake pans.
My cute Mommy dearest has always made two separate cakes, on in a glass 8x10 pan, and one in a pie pan (Pyrex also). The depth really lends well to get both cakes thoroughly cooked and caramelized on top and bottom.
Bake it up for about 40-45 minutes on 375 and voila...you're feeding 3 drunk 20-somethings and they're friends and putting a shit-eating grin on everyone's face. 
THANKS MOM! (i luv you!)

RECIPE
3-4 Apples (whatever you prefer. Grannies bake better and lend some acid to the sweetness of the batter)
1 1/2 cups of walnuts (the recipe calls for any tree variety, but we liked walnuts because they are awesome)
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/4 cup oil
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
nutmeg and cinnamon to taste (nutmeg is hated by our family so we omit it, and it's ok!)

these assholes totally love the apple nut cake!

Recipe provided by "Soups and Samplers" by Suzanna Wheppler and Adele G. Jones 1962

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