Bake Date: Apple Spice Yum Loaf

This recipe fell into my clutches one afternoon a few weeks ago when a lovely person came to co-conjure up an apple pie in my co-zy kitchen and brought with her far too many of the most gigantic apples I had ever encountered. (Seriously, Mr. Newton would have been a goner if one of those babies had plopped his noggin.) Needless to say, the family's Swedish apple pie recipe was resurrected with many a sinful fruit to spare, so we continued to perfume the kitchen with praline apple bread and this apple spice cake, which we then contributed to a spontaneous post-Mountain Day Smithie indulgeganza. I know apple season has pretty much met its end (especially in New England with all that untimely white stuff), but in case you've still got a few plump morsels hoping for a useful future, here's a way to save the day.

What you need:

• 2 cups flour 
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• heaping 1/4 tsp ground cloves (Original recipe calls for 1 tsp allspice. I ain't got none.)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup softened butter substitute
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (not packed)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract (none of that imitation nonsense)
• about 2 cups apples (3ish), peeled & chopped into wee (but not too wee!) bits
• 1/2 cup raisins (for those who admire that wrinkliest of fruits)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (ifin' yer lookin' fer uh liddul krunch)

Oventemp: 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) ((450 degrees K)) 
Makes: 2 loaves, or one big bundt (teehee), or whatevah! 
Musik: Something seasonally warm for the cold. Apartmentmate said that this baked good "smelled like Christmas" (or rather, "smelled after Christmas" if you're niggling for a literal translation), so maybe go in that direction. If you dare.

Butter your pan(s) of choice. I always find this chore annoying in the same way that brushing my teeth is annoying-- there are so many other ways I could be using those few minutes than standing there greasing a pan/brushing my teeth! Buuut then it's necessary and one always has to do it. Just get it out of the way now.

Soak the raisins (if you're not one of those raisin haters) in warm water for about ten minutes, then drain. Why, you ask? I ask: Do you want your Apple Spice Yum Loaf to be scrumptiously moist and mouth-thrilling?

Whisk together the flour, spices, and baking soda in an appropriately sized vessel, being careful not to fling powder all over the room and making sure to incorporate all the spices. If your whisking leaves dark, spicy swirls hidden in the carbohydrate dust, whisk more effectively! You don't want the baking soda to miss out on half the batter.

Mush the butter substitute and sugar into a fully functional horror flick Blob for your arteries. I suppose you could simplify things with an electric mixer... but there's just something so classy about a wooden spoon. Next slop it up with the eggs and vanilla, thicken carefully with the dry mixture, and fold in wee apple bits and raisins and/or nut chunks.

Immediately deposit in the painstakingly greased pan(s) and bake in the lower half of your preheated oven for approximately one hour, or until a sharp object inserted carefully into the abdomen proves that the guts goo no more. (I really was going to try to be less visceral with this recipe... oops.) Cool. Devour. Cool? Cool.