Donna Alward's Shenandoah Apple Cake!

Note to all: Ruthy is married to Dave whose favorite old movie is: "Shenandoah" so Ruthy is pretty darn sure this recipe was just meant for the Yankee-Belle Cafe!  Because that's how Ruthy thinks.

Recipe Time!

I like to cook. Incidentally, so do my girls, and when we ended up with a huge amount of cooking apples, we went searching for recipes.

I found one in a homemade cookbook my sister gave me one Christmas - some of her fave recipes as well as all the ones from my Mom's notebook recipe book. It's Shenandoah Apple Cake and we tweaked it just a little for our preferences. The girls made this on their own and it was SOOOOO good. Since apple season is just about over, I wanted to share it with you. It's perfect for cool fall days.

You can make it without the sauce if you like - it's still plenty moist and is really good with ice cream.

1 cup cooking oil
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 ¼ tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 cups diced apples
1 cup chopped nuts
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg

Beat oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla in a bowl at medium speed (about 3 min). Sift together in a separate bowl – flour, salt, soda, spices. Gradually add dry ingredients to the wet, beating well after each additions. Stir in apples, then nuts. Pour into a greased and floured 13x9 pan, bake at 350 for 1 hour or until done (mine took between 50 and 55 minutes).

For topping combine ½ cup butter, 1 cup brown sugar (packed) and ¼ cup milk in a saucepan. Cook over med heat, stirring constantly, until it boils. Boil 3 minutes, pour on cake at once and let cool.

You can eat it once it's cool, but truthfully it's better on the second day after the sauce has soaked in....mmmmm!