This will be shocking to you, but I don’t always seek out the most complicated recipes I can get my hands on! Sometimes I like to get something in the oven as fast as I can, and this recipe is one that fits the bill. It comes together in about 10 minutes and then pops in the oven. It’s not the most gorgeous cake I’ve ever seen, with a tender, slightly loose crumb that doesn’t release from the pan completely evenly – this isn’t a cake that will slice particularly gracefully. It is, however, delicious, with plenty of apple flavor and just the right balance of spices.

This is a cake you could even eat for breakfast, because it involves relatively little in the way of fats (oil and eggs). It’s moist, but not overly so – something that can plague oil-based cakes. You could make this with just a regular whisk, but I think using a hand mixer helps emulsify the batter better.  If you have the time and wish to spend more than 10 minutes making this cake, I recommend making the applesauce yourself – you will have that much more control over what goes into it, and how concentrated it is. I simmered my applesauce for about 5 hours, and it had a silky, slightly unctuous mouthfeel that you don’t get from storebought applesauce, somewhere between applesauce and apple butter. It also had a more concentrated apple flavor than regular applesauce. No need to pass it through a food mill unless you left the peels in – it gets smoother the longer it cooks. (more…)