Mom’s Apple Cake

Kick off the fall season and boost your immune system with crisp apples. They’re full of vitamin C and the main ingredient in this trusted apple cake recipe shared by our Volunteer Resources Coordinator, Susan. For the past ten years, Susan has made apple cake for her family in New York in celebration of Rosh Hashanah. “It’s traditional for Jews to dip apples into honey for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year),” she says, “This symbolizes sweetness with the hope of having a ‘sweet year’ moving forward.”

Mom’s Apple Cake (originally from Smitten Kitchen)
By Susan Aronoff, Volunteer Resources Coordinator

Ingredients

  • 6 apples, Mom uses McIntosh apples
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 5 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 3/4 cups flour, sifted
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1/4 cup orange juice
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a tube pan. Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon and sugar and set aside.
  2. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.
  3. Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Spread half of apples over it. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool completely before running knife between cake and pan, and unmolding onto a platter.