Munchies Monday: Pumpkin Apple Cake

I wish I had a picture of the finished product, but I don’t.
I’ll be totally honest – it’s kind of a boring-looking cake. BUT.
It tastes so good you won’t care. And I usually want to cut into it as soon as it comes
out of the oven instead of bothering with pictures and crap. So there you have it.

Continuing the Jedi Food Master chronicles…

My sister makes these killer pumpkin apple streusal muffins* EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. we get together as a family. In fact, my mother has been known to have the ingredients for the muffins sitting out on the counter in her kitchen when my sister arrives from the airport as a not-so-subtle hint to GET BAKING, BEEYOTCH. (Expect my mother would NEVER call anyone a beeyotch, no no no no). When I think of autumn and comfort food, these muffins are one of the first things I start craving. They’re also one of my favorite things to whip up for guests because everyone LOVES them.

A few weeks ago, when I was preparing to make these muffins, I had a sinister idea: WHAT. IF. I decided to turn the muffins into a cake? I feared I may die from the awesomeness, but I looked that fear in the eye and said, “So what?” So I tweaked the recipe just a bit and made a apple-pumpkin bundt cake that kicked more butt than a little bit.

Emily’s Famous Apple-Pumpkin Cake

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (not self-rising)
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 TB pumpkin pie spice (you could also sub apple pie spice, which I often do if the store doesn’t have pumpkin pie spice)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp baking powder (optional)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup cooked pumpkin puree (I just use the canned stuff, though I know from personal experience that fresh pumpkin is 1,000,000 times better)
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter, melted
• 1/3 cup milk
• 2 Granny Smith apples, cored and finely chopped (I don’t peel my apples but of course you can if you have all the time in the world…)

Instructions
(This is so easy it should be illegal.)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter and flour a Bundt cake pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients. In a small bowl, combine wet ingredients.
3. Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix until fully incorporated (no more dry spots.) Don’t OVER mix.
4. Fold in apples and spoon batter into cake pan.
5. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
6. Gently slide a butter knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cake, then invert the pan over a wire cooling rack (or, if you’re me and have never bought yourself a wire cooling rack, a plate or a clean dishtowl) and allow it to cool for a few minutes before eating.

I HIGHLY recommend eating this cake for breakfast with a glass of milk.

I also HIGHLY recommend sharing it with everyone you love. Because nothing says “I love you” like cake.

The last time I made this cake (day before yesterday) I experimented with whipping together some milk and powdered sugar for a glaze. It didn’t turn out super awesome, which is why I didn’t include it in my recipe. I mean, it tasted good, but the cake was still really warm so the glaze just melted all over the place, plus it was a little lumpy which wasn’t attractive but whatever. Perhaps I will perfect the sugar glaze step the NEXT time I make this cake. But honestly, it is perfectly fine all by its lonesome. And by “perfectly fine” I mean FREAKING AWESOME.

* I’m not sure where my sister got her recipe originally, and the one I’ve linked to doesn’t include two of the ingredients she always uses – vanilla and baking powder. But it’s close enough.