Cake!

Yesterday, I made cake.

It was Valentine's Day, right? Plus, the Bizzle's dined Chez Iain, so we needed something for dessert. Dinner was home made pulled pork, green salad, and KFC coleslaw. So what goes with that?

How about Apple Cream Cheese cake? 'Kay.


I got the recipe here. It's based on a Cooking Light recipe, then reverse-engineered so that it's no longer light.

I changed the recipe a little because I don't own a springform pan and since I've made it to 35 without one I don't feel that I need one. Also, the danger of ever making my very own cheesecake and then EATING THE ENTIRE THING is much reduced by not having a springform pan. I also increased the spice, naturally.

So. Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
  
• 1 stick butter, at room temp
  
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 6 ounces cream cheese, at room temp
  
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon, and a pinch each of ground nutmeg and ground cloves
• 3 cups chopped peeled Fuji apples (I used 3 medium apples)
  
• Cooking spray

Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350(F)(that should really be obvious)(because 350C would be crazy hot). In a mixer or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and cream cheese, then add 1.5 cups sugar. Add vanilla and beat for several minutes till it's all fluffy and lovely and you want to eat it. While this is going on, you can peel and chop your apples, if you haven't already. I cut mine into about 3/4 inch dice.

2. Add the eggs, one at a time. Once mixed, reduce the mixer speed to low.

3. Mix the flour, salt, some of the spices, and bp in a bowl. Add that to the slowly mixing creamy good stuff until it's all mixed in. Turn off the mixer.

4. Take the last sugar (1/4 cup) and mix in whatever's left of the spices. Basically, it's cinnamon sugar. Toss that into the apples, mix it up, and mix the apples and cinnamon into the batter with a big wooden spoon or spatula. What you have now is a thick, chunky batter flecked with cinnamon. Don't taste it, fool - there's raw eggs in there. (It tastes really good.)

5. Spray your pan with PAM or whatever. Put in the batter. It will be so thick that it won't slump in the pan and you may want to smooth it out with your spatula. I did.

6. Pop that puppy in the oven for about an hour. Mine took 59 minutes. If you like, you can sprinkle cinnamon sugar on the top (what will be the bottom), but I did and I don't think it really added anything.

7. Let it cool completely in the pan, then pop it out and dust with cinnamon sugar. You could glaze it, but I think that would be gilding the lily. We ate it with ice cream and it was really, really good. Iain and Callie thought so, too.