Apple Cake

There's certain foods that must be eaten in the fall- pumpkin, squash, anything with cinnamon, and apple desserts. This one belongs to the last category.

Apple Cake
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
4 large baking (tart) apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1 T baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tsp vanilla

Heat oven to 350. Spray a 10 inch cake pan with nonstick spray (I used a springform pan and it worked very well- I recommend it).

In a large bowl, mix 2 T of flour, 1/4 cup of the sugar, and all of the cinnamon. Add apples and toss to combine.

In a second bowl, mix remaining sugar, remaining flour, baking powder and salt. Add eggs, oil, butter, orange juice, and vanilla. Beat batter until smooth.

Pour half of the batter (about 2 cups) into prepared pan. Top with half of apple mixture. Carefully spoon remaining batter over apples, then top with remaining apples. (Take an extra second and fan them out pretty. It will look so nice.) Keep the apples about 1/4" away from the edge of the pan.

Bake for 60-80 minutes, until toothpick inserted in the center of cake comes out clean. Let cool for 30 minutes before removing sides of pan. You can also prepare this in a bundt pan and invert it to serve. Top with powdered sugar, whipping cream, or vanilla ice cream.