Apple Cake

I own a dozen or so books on cooking/baking. Some are gifted, some I bought, and others have interesting stories behind them. One such book in the later category is Walter C. Black School cookbook. People used to donate books at our Princeton apartment common room to share with other people for various reasons. Once I found this cooking/baking (spiral binding form) book which had a collection of very simple recipes by a community. I just loved the simplicity of recipes in this book which has about three recipes on a A8 (1/2 of A4) size page with 12pt font. Isn't it amazing ?



Anyways, it has couple of apple cake recipes and I have been making one of them (titled as 'Gran's Apple Cake') quite regularly. Every time I serve it to a group of friends or relatives, someone in the group always requested for the recipe:) I am very appreciative of the amount of apples in this recipe as at times I am put off by the huge apple chunks in apple cakes recipes. Well, someone else may like them for exactly that reason but somehow I prefer the thin slices. Enjoy the recipe below (adapted from the above mentioned source) in the morning with a cup of coffee or during your afternoon tea parties:)

Ingredients:
3 cup all purpose flour (Sifted)
2 cup sugar (or less if one prefers)
1 cup oil
4 large eggs (room temperature)
3 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
2 large apples or 4 small apples

Topping:
5 tsp sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon

- In a bowl, sift the flour. Add sugar and baking powder to the flour and mix.
- In a separate bowl, lightly beat eggs, add oil, orange juice and stir.
- Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture to make the batter.
- Peel and thinly slice apples.
- For topping, mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.
- Pour half of the batter into a greased and floured 8X8 pan (or any other pan of choice).
- Add half of the topping mixture on the above mixture.
- Arrange half of the apple slices on the topping mixture.
- Add the remaining half of the batter mixture on apple slices and spread evenly.
- Add the topping and then arrange apple slices.
- Bake in a preheated oven at 350 F for 50 to 60 minutes or readjust according to your oven type.