Easy Apple Spice Cake

The Husband found some really delicious New Zealand apples at the supermarket near our place.

So I decided to use some of those apples to make an apple cake for a potluck with my family today.

Every major festival, my extended family would gather at my uncle's place for a potluck session. Today's potluck was to celebrate the the Mid Autumn Festival.

The Chinese celebrate the Mid Autumn Festival, also called Mooncake Festival on the 15th day of the eighth Chinese lunar month when the moon is at its fullest and brightest. This year's Mid-Autumn Festival falls on 12 Sep, so we are celebrating it in advance.

As with every potluck, there is too much food to go around so I was initially disappointed that this apple cake wasn't flying off the table. But then my grandma and aunt, both great cooks, gave me a thumbs up for the cake... and everyone who ate it seemed to like it.

The brother-in-law was also very quick to suggest that he would packed home the rest of the cake.. so I think this turned out to be a pretty good recipe, after all.

And it is a really easy recipe too. The original recipe is from marthastewart.com

Ingredients
Dry ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
Wet ingredients
1 3/4 cups sugar (original recipe says 2 cups)
3 large eggs
1 1/3 cups vegetable oil (I use canola oil)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Others
3 cups apples, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 cup chopped nuts, pecans or walnuts (optional, I used macadamia nuts)

What I did
1. Preheat the oven to 180 deg C
2. Sift all the dry ingredients together
3. Cream the wet ingredients together using the paddle attachment of the electric mixer until the mixture turns lemon yellow
4. Gradually add the sifted dry ingredients to the mixture, mixing at medium speed
5. Gently mix in the apples and nuts.
6. Pour the mixture into a 9 inch cake pan, or a 12 cup Bundt pan (Spray the pan and lightly dust with some flour before pouring the mixture in). I added some blueberries on top today, as I had some extra blueberries at home.
7. Bake for 90 mins (The original recipe says 75 - 90 mins but I've found that the cake cooks only at about 90 mins. If the top gets too brown, cover the pan with an aluminium foil in the last 20 - 15 mins of baking)

This cake is wonderful when served warm, ideally with some good vanilla ice-cream. I had it warm and after it cooled down and I definitely think warm is much better.