JEWISH APPLE CAKE

3 cups flour
1 cup salad oil
2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp. vanilla
1 Tbsp. baking powder
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp. salt
4 oz. orange juice (or grapefruit juice)

Mix dry ingredients. Mix wet ingredients. Mix dry and wet ingredients together.

In a well greased and floured tube pan, layer half of batter, half of apples (see below), half of 3 Tbsp. cinnamon sugar (one part cinnamon to one part sugar), rest of batter, apples, cinnamon sugar. Arrange top layer of apples nicely.

Bake 1 hour at 350F.

Note on apples: Canned apples are nicer (moister) than fresh ones. Use only pure, unadulterated apple slices (ingredients: apples, maybe water), NOT apple pie filling, which is sweetened. One can, ~20 oz., is enough for one cake. Reserve whole slices for top layer. Unfortunately, canned apples are nearly impossible to find these days. Two to four baking apples (Granny Smiths, say), peeled, cored, and sliced reasonably thickly, should suffice.

Unnecessary additional information:

This is a very forgiving cake. You don't need to use an electric mixer or sift anything, and as long as you mix the dry and wet ingredients separately first, it never lumps. I made it once in someone's ill-stocked kitchen with slightly overripe bananas in the middle layer, fresh peaches on top, brown sugar substituted for part of the white sugar, and wheat flour for part of the white flour, and I think part olive oil, and it came out fine, if a little moist from the bananas and brown sugar (I should have increased the baking time five or ten minutes to compensate). I have also used canned peaches in place of apples and grapefruit juice instead of orange juice to good effect. Use your imagination!

You may also make this cake in single layers. Reduce the baking time somewhat. Use a toothpick to test for doneness (single or double layer). The cake is ready when the toothpick comes out with moist crumbs attached, rather than with batter. It's a moist cake so you needn't wait until the toothpick comes out clean, though the cake will still taste fine if you do -- there's a lot of leeway in the baking time. Do not use a two-layer pan without a center hole, as the center will not cook, but bundt pans are acceptable.

To remove from the tube pan, let the cake sit five or so minutes. Then run a knife around the sides and tube and lift the cake and the center/bottom section of the pan out of the outer section of the pan. Run a knife under the bottom of the cake, and insert three spatulas or two long, wide knives (e.g., chef's knife and bread knife) between the cake and pan. Lift evenly, holding down the top of the tube with your third or fourth hand until the cake is free, and transfer the cake to a plate. It does not need to be cooled on a rack. If you don't have two people, or for some other reason have fewer than three hands, you may perform this operation with two knives or (preferably large) spatulas, two hands, and your chin on the tube. Be careful not to burn your chin on the tube. If using spatulas, work carefully to keep the cake from breaking in half. If the cake breaks, you may be forced to eat it yourself and bake another one, more's the pity. (Actually, if you just push the halves together, a simple break won't
show.)
--Sue