Simple Apple Cake (My Tete’s Recipe)
This is a cake that my Tete (grandmother) would make often because they always had a fruitful apple tree among many other plants and trees in her garden.
Ingredients
- ¾ cup unsalted butter
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 3 eggs
- ¾ cup milk whole or 2%
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3 apples cut in small dices about ½ inch (totaling about 3 cups) * See Notes
- Zest from 1 orange optional but recommended
- Powdered sugar for dusting on top
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 and prepare a bundt pan by greasing it with butter or nonstick cooking spray.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until pale in color and fluffy. Add in the eggs and mix until fully combined. Add in the milk and vanilla and continue stirring. If the mixture looks like it is slightly curdled at this point, its ok!
- Add a couple of tablespoons of the flour into the diced apples and stir to coat. This prevents the apples from all sinking to the bottom once the cake is baking.
- Mix the remainder of the flour, baking powder, and salt and add it to the wet mixture. Combine until no more lumps appear without overmixing. Add in the flour coated apple pieces and the orange zest if you’re using. And carefully combine. Add the mixture into the greased bundt pan and bake for 1 hour or until golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out of the center of the cake clean. Let cool for 10 minutes and then dust with powdered sugar before slicing. This cake is served best while warm – the outside is still crunchy and the scent of the orange is more prominent. It’s also delicious with vanilla ice cream and/or caramel sauce! Enjoy!
Notes
I use a mixture of Gala and Honeycrisp apples because I think they lend the perfect amount of sweetness. There really isn’t much sugar in the cake itself, so a tart apple like a granny smith would not be ideal unless you want more of a tart flavor.