A Nice Cuppa

Oh, Summer, how we loved ye.

And now your glorious heat and sunshine and long lazy days at the beach are starting to fade…

Well, not quite yet. I know we still have Labor Day to get through and that technically the season extends long into September. But I???m starting to sense that ???Fall feeling??? ??? there have been whiffs of it in the air, the weight of the imminent cold weather is starting to slowly creep in, and the Halloween and Thanksgiving trimmings are already abounding in stores. It seems that Fall gets more and more premature each year.

I happen to love the season, but it does take me a little while to mourn the end of Summer before I???m ready to fully embrace the coming of shorter days. So I thought I???d start now ??? prepare myself for Labor Day???s last hurrah and the gradual wind-down that follows. And what better way than with cake?

I eat cyclically, so come September I start stocking apples in my kitchen like no other. In the Summer, I???m all about the berries and peaches, but over the last week I???ve started reintroducing apples to my diet. As a standalone fruit, they are versatile and fundamentally perfect for desserts ??? and I don???t just mean pie. On a Sunday morning in the Fall, there???s nothing more appealing than a piping hot mug of coffee and a slice of apple cake.

This recipe I developed is for a simple cake that???s sufficiently full of apples yet not too sweet, which makes it a great accompaniment to coffee and ideal for breakfast time. Or any other time, really. Enjoy.

Apple Spice Cake

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
?? cup sugar
2 ?? tsp baking powder
?? tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
?? tsp ground cloves
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/3 cup half & half
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and chopped into small pieces
?? cup finely chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9-inch square pan and set aside.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and cloves in a large bowl. Whisk the eggs with the vanilla extract in a small bowl, then add to the flour mixture along with the oil and cream. Beat with an electric mixer until just combined. Fold in the apple pieces and walnuts.

Pour batter into the prepared pan. Place in center rack of oven and bake for 30 minutes or until top is golden brown and cake begins to pull away from edges of pan.

Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then run a butter knife around edge of pan to loosen cake. Invert onto rack. Cool for another 15 minutes before slicing and eating.