High concept desserts may make people oooh, aaah and Instagram, but it’s the old school goodies that get gobbled up with glee.

Case in point: Mrs. Lamb’s Apple Cake.

I dug into my faded, hand-written recipe book the other day when I needed a fourth offering for our refreshments table at the Westport Historical Society’s annual meeting. I had a cookie recipe, a rich brownie recipe as well as instructions for pumpkin whoopie pies that I planned to miniaturize. But being that this event was being held at the town Grange –and included a talk about local farming history — I needed cake.

Farmers on TV and in the movies seem to like cake, right? So I went for Louise Lamb’s apple cake with raisins that I knew was a crowd pleaser and – bonus points! – didn’t need to be eaten with a fork.

It couldn’t be easier to make, and it makes your kitchen smell fantastic – just like the cinnamon-y scent of Mrs. Lamb’s small kitchen in her cottage on Sylvia’s Lane in Westport. In the summer, the kitchen usually smelled of fried scup or tautog that her grandson, Sam, would catch as well as the best baked beans ever made. But come September, before we closed up our cottages for the winter, there was this delicious apple cake.

Louise Lamb was Nana’s friend and the mother of my father and uncle’s boyhood running buddies in East Providence. Her granddaughter, Patty, was one of my childhood besties. Hmm. I wonder if she ever makes this cake…

I made a couple of updates to the recipe such as cutting back on the sugar, adding nutmeg and soaking the raisins before adding them to the batter.

As I suspected, the Westport Historical Society gang gobbled up the cake, most of brownies, cookies and mini pumpkin whoopies. But the recipe requested most was for the apple cake.

Funny story: When I tried to pawn off some left-over sweets on the town’s oldest farmer, John Bettencourt, 90, who runs Misty Rock Farm, he said, “Oh, I have so much at home. Women are always bringing me cakes.”

See? Farmers do like cake!

MRS. LAMB’S APPLE CAKE

1 c. raisins

¼ c. warm water or apple cider

1 c. sugar

½ c. canola oil

2 eggs

2 t. vanilla

2 c. all-purpose flour

1 t. salt

2 t. baking powder

2 t. cinnamon

½ t. nutmeg

4 c. chopped apples (I use Granny Smith or Cortlands)

1 c. walnuts or pecans, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Apply butter or spray a 9-x-13 pan with Pam or some other spray shortening.

In a small bowl, soak raisins in the warm water or cider then set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream sugar and canola oil. Add eggs one at a time then the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Scrape bowl down as needed, but do not over mix.

Fold in apples, then raisins as well as the remaining soaking liquid. Lastly, add the chopped walnuts.

Add the cake batter to the prepared pan, spreading it evenly. (I also tap the pan on the counter a couple of times to help it along.) Bake for 45 minutes.

Test for doneness with a skewer in the middle of the cake. If there’s still some batter stuck to the skewer, bake for 5-8 minutes more. Cool in pan placed on a rack. When thoroughly cool, cut squares of the cake from the pan.

Serves 16.

© The Foodsmith, www.lauraraposa.com, 2013.

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: #apple, #applecake, #appledesserts, #desserts, #farmers, #fruitdesserts, #LauraRaposa, #TheFoodsmith, Baking