Apple season
I know, I know, I’m supposed to be telling you about ALBION and posting pictures of Orange Horse. Both are going to be seriously anticlimactic by the time I get there. But it’s later than it ought to be even allowing for the fact that Friday is a bell practise night, because something one of you said sent me back just now to reread Tolkien’s On Fairy-Stories and, whoop, there went most of an hour. And I want to talk about it–but not when I’m starting at midnight. And one of my editors, after reading FIRE, sent me a comment about voice that I’ve already asked and received permission to post and answer here. Maybe tomorrow. Unless Roland the Orange wins.* Roland may win because tomorrow is another overbooked day–in theory I only allow myself one extracurricular activity per day** and Saturdays are Connie. But Niall’s and my latest third at handbells*** asked if we’d ring a (tower) wedding tomorrow afternoon.† And then Vicky asked me tonight if I’d ring Sunday afternoon for the special service–I’m remembering it as something to do with the RAF but neither Google nor the GUARDIAN is helping me about this–because one of her crack troop has fallen ill. Maybe I’ll have to post photos of orange horses two days in a row.
Meanwhile. It’s apple season. I’m eating about four a day and nothing like keeping up: I’ll have to make applesauce soon, which then leads to applesauce cake. But first there is
Glazed Apple Nut Cake
4 c peeled, coarsely chopped apples: sour cooking apples are good, but so are any sharp crisp eating apples
1 ¾ c sugar, although you can adjust this for your apples. (Hint: this is a lot of sugar.) And for those of you who live in Maple Syrup Land, lucky you, you can also use about 1 c maple syrup, and add enough flour to make a proper cake-batter consistency
2 eggs
½ c vegetable oil. This is one of the very, very, very, very, very few recipes where I haven’t changed over to butter. I used to use corn oil, now I use sunflower
2 c flour: the original recipe calls for standard white all purpose. I like to replace say ½ c with wholemeal/wholewheat, plus a little barley flour, maybe ¼ c. Barley is really good with apples but you can’t use much, it makes the texture very crumbly. (It makes a good crumble top for an apple pudding. I’ll try to remember to post this some day.)
2 tsp REAL vanilla
2 tsp baking soda
Pinch salt, if you’re that way inclined
2 tsp cinnamon
½ c chopped almonds (or your favourite nuts)
Combine apples and half the sugar. Mix eggs, oil, vanilla, beat like mad. Then add the other half of the sugar and beat like mad again. Then add the flour(s) and the other dry stuff, and mix thoroughly. Then add the apples, then the nuts, stir.
Bake in greased and floured 13 x 9″ pan 350° 45-50 minutes.
Lemon Glaze
1 c icing/confectioner’s sugar
@ 2T T lemon juice
½ tsp vanilla
1 T corn syrup/golden syrup
Blend sugar with the rest till smooth. Drizzle over warm cake.
Now, the really lovely bit: this cake improves with age. This may mean you have to hide it for the first couple of days but it’ll be worth it. And it means if you have a gang coming for tea next weekend, you can make this days in advance and have one fewer thing to worry about on the day. Or if you don’t and there’s only two of you and one of you has menopause the way you might have rabies and can only eat 2 calories a day, the cake will still be good when you (finally) get to the end of it.
* * *
* There is one semi-reason why I keep putting off posting pictures of Roland, which is that I promised to send them to Jenny, forgot to get her email address, and only think of ringing her and asking for it at times like midnight. And it seems peculiar to post them before she’s seen them.
** Except Fridays. Fridays are both piano lesson and home bell tower practise. Fridays are lovely. My bad.^
^ Some week I should see if I could ride Connie on a Friday. . . . No, wait, I still have to earn a living.
*** who is a tower captain laid up by surgery and suffering Bell Withdrawal. Niall and I are sacrificing corn dollies, bottles of beer and small plastic toys that he’ll get properly infected with handbells and have to continue even after he’s fit to pull ropes again. He’s scaring me how fast he’s catching on, but I can cope.
† This is in a whole different (bell tower) district (although it’s also next door). For a local handbell third we’ll do anything.
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