Apple-Picking Baking Madness ~ Caramel Apple Cake with Pecans

Saturday I went to Cider Hill Farm in Amesbury, MA with a few friends to go Apple and Peach picking. It was lots of fun and I got some great fruit. I'm looking forward to eating and baking with my spoils!

Here I am apple-picking. Or pretending to apple pick!

I plan to do about 4 desserts with my apples and peaches. Caramel Apple Cake, Apple Turnovers, Apple Crisp and Peach Cobbler.

Food Network has the most amazing Caramel Apple Cake recipe. I make it every year without fail. This year I found myself in a quandary. It was late, I didn't have a bundt pan, I didn't have the time to make homemade caramel sauce and I didn't have enough flour to make a cake from scratch. I still wanted to make the Caramel Apple Cake so I made an altered version of it.

If you do make this cake, please try the original recipe! It's so much better. But if you are in a jam like I was or if you are new to baking or have baking issues, this simplified version may suit your needs.

Caramel Apple Cake with Pecans (Simplified)


Ingredients:

4-5 Peeled and Sliced Apples
Lemon Juice
3 tablespoons of brown sugar
Sprinkle of cinammon

Vanilla Cake Mix
3 eggs, 1/3 cup oil and 1-1/4 cup water (for cake mix)
1/2 teaspoon of Cinammon
1/8 teaspoon of Nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon of Ground Clove

Chopped Pecans
Caramel Sauce for Ice Cream

Heat your oven to 350 degrees. Peel and slice your apples. The thinner the slices the better. Add several squeezes of lemon juice and set aside.

Add the dry vanilla cake mix to a bowl. Then add cinammon, nutmeg and ground clove and mix until thorough incorporated into the cake mix. Add wet ingredients and prepare according to cake mix instructions. If you don't have a hand mixer or standing mixer, you can always sift the dry ingredients first, then add the wet ingredients and mix by hand with a spatula.

Back to those apples. Add a sprinkle of cinammon and the brown sugar and mix into the apples.

Take a 13 X 9 baking dish and spray with baking spray. Add the apple mixture to the bottom of the dish and spread evenly. Then pour the cake batter over the apples. Give a little shake to settle the batter and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the

Let the cake cool. Cut a sliver off the top to make the top of the cake flatter (if you don't do this you'll get a crack in your cake like in my picture above). Loosen up the sides with a flat spatula then flip over your cake onto a cutting board. Move carefully back into the baking dish or onto whatever platter you may have.

Drizzle some caramel sauce all over the cake with a big spoon. Add a generous amount of chopped pecans then drizzle more caramel sauce over that.

Enjoy responsibly.