German Apple Cake

 
As my grandmother once put it, “Judy (my mother) was never the baker.” However there are three things my mother used to bake, and she did those three very very well, German apple cake being one. This may be *Carola’s recipe, but my mother has been making this cake twenty years. When I drove up to visit my parents at their new home  in Boston I was excited to see this cake waiting for me. It brought me back to my childhood and made me feel right at home, even through this was my first visit to their new digs. I guess home is really where the food is for me.

This cake is super SUPER easy to make, not overly sweet at all and you can use apples that may not be super fresh. The apples I’ve been using have been sitting in my fridge since I picked them back in September, which may be a little insane but nobody eating the cake has been complaining. I swear these Mutso apples last forever in your fridge. I’d recommend a green apple for this recipe.  You can easily whip this up in under 10 minutes, and then pop it in the oven for an hour. It’s a terrific light breakfast or teatime cake.

*This recipe comes from Carola, a German babysitter who used to take care of my brother and me as wee tots. We’re German too so I consider this a family recipe.

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Homemade Gnocchi

I’m pretty sure that in 2 years this is only the second time I’ve posted a non-dessert food on here.  It’s not that I don’t cook, it’s just that I’m not an especially good cook and the the food I make is boring.  This gnocchi dinner on the other hand seemed worthy of sharing.  I’d been wanting to try making gnocchi for awhile, but assumed it would be too difficult.  This weekend I had some extra potatoes around and figured why not? If they didn’t turn out we’d eat frozen pizza.  I was so surprised how easily these came together.  Don’t be intimidated by the recipe, it’s long, but none of the steps are difficult.

Rolling the gnocchi

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Peanut Butter Blondies

This is a recipe that I decided to make at the last minute when I found out I was having lunch with a vegan friend.  I chose it because I had all of the ingredients on hand, it was a bar cookie which is less work than scooping out individual portions, and it was described as appealing to people who like really peanut buttery desserts.  I had no expectations and just hoped they would turn out reasonably good.  I ended up getting such a huge reaction from my friends and actually had several people describe these as one of the best desserts they’ve ever had.

This recipe got me excited about Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar again.  When I first got the book I had really high hopes since I’m such a fan of the authors’ cupcake cookbook.  The first cookie recipe I tried from it was great, but the second really wasn’t very good.  After my success with this recipe I’m going to put the cookbook back in more regular rotation.

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Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes

When I was up in Vermont for Christmas, my mom and I talked quite a bit about baking.  She’s a great cook, but absolutely hates baking because she thinks there are too many ingredients, too many steps, too many dirty dishes, and she finds the results unreliable.  She recently made these mini cheesecakes from the blog and thought they were way too much work.  I would describe the cheesecakes as pretty simple, but requiring a bit of patience when making the little crusts.  It was a nice reminder that my perspective on the difficulty level for a baking recipe is a bit skewed considering how often I bake and how much I enjoy it.

This recipe is truly easy and since it is just a doctored cake mix is very reliable.  I actually really like yellow cake from a mix, and unlike chocolate cake, think it’s very often better than homemade.

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