my birthday cake

It was both my and my husband's birthdays last weekend and a friend asked what kind of cake I got.

Well, at that point I hadn't got any kind of cake at all because we don't do much for birthdays around here.

However, I *like* cake a lot, so decided to make myself one. I had a couple Granny Smith apples that weren't getting any younger, plus a few Pink Ladys, so I thought something with apples sounded good but didn't want to bother making a pie.  I got out my well-used copy of Favorite Recipes From Quilters and thumbed thru the apple cake recipes.

Maybe you're thinking how many apple cake recipes can one cookbook have? Or need?  Well, this one has seven, and they're each different enough that they all seem to be needed.

Anyway, I chose one that had a high apple-to-flour ratio because I was going for a thick dense cake, reminiscent of carrot cake, only not as vegetable-y.

china check - Fiestaware
flatware - my husband's grandma's vintage Community,
don't know the pattern name

(note: This is one of my most-used cookbooks. Every single recipe I've tried tasted good, came out right, etc. I highly recommend it and you can get used copies for only $2.02, plus shipping, at the link on the book name above. Since I paid the entire $14.95 for mine in July of 1995, I think that's a great deal.)

It smelled marvelous while baking and had a nice crust on top from all the sugar. The edges were crispy too, and I ate my way around about a third of the cake before it had been out of the oven five minutes.

Hey - it's my birthday cake, ok? You can eat yours any way you like and I won't say a word.

When it was cool, I frosted it with cream cheese frosting which I've never made from scratch before. It seemed a bit thick and maybe too cheesy to me, so I sifted in about another half cup of 10x sugar and added a splash of milk.

This cake is really good all by itself. When you slather it in cream cheese frosting, it goes up another hundred points on the OMG-o-meter. This cake has earned a spot in the baking rotation at our house, altho I'll prolly leave off the frosting entirely most of the time, or maybe try it with low fat cream cheese.

Raw Apple Cake
combine all and mix well:
2 eggs
4 c diced apples (I did not peel mine)
1/2 c cooking oil
2 c sugar (next time I'll use 1 1/2 c and see how it goes)
1/2 t salt
2 t baking soda
2 t cinnamon
2 t vanilla
2 c flour
2 c nuts (I omitted these)

Bake in 350F oven until toothpick stuck in center comes out clean.

Frosting:
cream together:
4 T butter
8 oz cream cheese
then stir in:
2 t vanilla
1 1/2 c sifted powdered sugar
spread on cooled cake