Chunky Apple Cake

It's apple season!  This year the apples are a little on the small size, given the extreme dryness we've experienced, but are as delicious as ever.  There's nothing like an apple freshly picked off the tree.  A friend who was going camping made what she called my apple cake to take with her.  Of course it's not my apple cake as I got the recipe from someone else, but it is a family favourite.   I always make it at this time of the year to use up some of our excess apples. Moist and delicious, it has chunks of apple and nuts in it and we usually top it off with cream cheese icing.  Today I made it with walnuts and divided the cake in two, freezing half for later.

Chunky Apple Cake

4 cups peeled, chopped apples
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 cup chopped nuts
2 eggs, beaten
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt.

Preheat the oven to 350F and grease a 9x13 pan.

Peel and chop the apples.  I used our favourite Gravenstein apples.

Mix together apples, sugar, oil, nuts, eggs and vanilla

Mix the dry ingredients together.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients and pour into the prepared pan distributing it evenly.  The batter will be thick.

Bake at 350F for 45 to 60 minutes - until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

We topped half of our our cake with cream cheese icing, but my friend baked hers as cupcakes and planned to serve them with frozen yoghurt.  And I'll bet it would be nice with raisins instead of walnuts - or even with.  Or perhaps dried cranberries.  The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.