One of my most precious possessions is my Gram’s Recipe Box. I love that I can see her recipes, in her handwriting, and that they show just how much she had used them. I vividly recall eating about 60% of those recipes, but the other 40% I don’t recall at all. Since Gram lived the epitome of a ‘Country Life’ I thought there would be no better way to get back to my country roots by going through all of her recipes.
Today we have a Nobby Apple Cake. This recipe is one of the easier and more straightforward ones to make. In total I spent 15 minutes for prep and had a 45 minute cook time. And boy was that hour worth it for the deliciousness that came out of my oven.
The best way to start any recipe is to have all of your ingredients and measuring tools out in front of you. This recipe called for nuts- since there wasn’t a specific nut, I went with what was on sale.
Let’s start with coring the apples. This kitchen gadget is one of my favorites because it is SO easy to core an apple. Just insert, twist and pull out.
Three cups of diced apples. Took me minutes to do! It took about 4 medium apples to make the 3 cups.
When I first saw “shortening” as ingredient I was nervous. The majority of the time we try to stay on the healthier side of eating- not saying we do it all the time, we are human. But at the grocery store I was THRILLED to see that there was a healthy version of shortening! The familiar brands of shortening consist of chemicals and freaking ingredients, lucky this Nutiva had an ingredient list I could read and understand. The texture and the taste of this shortening were consistent to what I remembered of what shortening should be like.
Added the apples, nuts & vanilla to the creamed sugar, shortening & egg mixture.
I love it when a recipe comes together before your eyes!
Pour the batter into the greased 8 inch square dish.
Smooth out batter till it’s even.
Bake for 45 minutes at 350°.
As Gram says, enjoy hot right out of the oven! And I did. This Apple Cake is so moist and flavorful. The smell as it’s cooking is intoxicating and makes it hard to wait the full 45 minutes. I also enjoyed this cake as breakfast the next day: popped a piece in the toaster oven for a few minutes and it was perfection.
Ingredients
- 1Cup Sugar
- 1/4 Cup Shortening
- 1 Egg
- 3 Cups Diced Apples (with or without skins)
- 1 Cup Flour
- 1/4 Chopped Nuts
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350°
- Core apples and cut into 1/2 inch cubes. I left the skins on for this part as I enjoy apple skins, but you can peel the apples before you cut them.
- Cream sugar & shortening. Add egg.
- Add apples, nuts & vanilla to sugar & shortening mixture.
- Stir.
- Next add the sifted dry ingredients to the bowl.
- Stir.
- Grease an 8 inch square pan.
- Pour mixture into pan.
- Bake for 45 mins at 350°. Make sure to check center of the cake with cake tester or knife to make sure it does- if it comes out clean cake is done, if it is still liquid- leave in oven and check in another 5-10 mins.
- Enjoy hot of the oven with some fresh whipped cream or ice cream!
Countryish Living 