Is it fall already?

Good question. Not that the changing seasons made much of a difference here. During fall and winter, our weather here ranges from 28 – 33C, which is pretty similar to spring and summer (although summer can sometimes climb up to about 35C). Still, we can detect the changing season through the different types of seasonal produce available in the market. Chinese restaurants would start to offer hairy crabs, a small furry crustacean with a belly full of deep orange roe. They are only available once a year, and is considered a delicacy. Japanese restaurants are seeing the arrival of Hokkaido crabs and fat sardines. The summer berries at the grocers are slowly being replaced with late season plums, chestnuts and rosy apples. Of course, we will always have our tropical fruits in abundance. Lucky us!

My dad will give me an apple every day to bring to work. I guess he believes in the term ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’ . Fall brings the freshest and fattest apples, which are most suitable for cooking. I guess it is only fair to start of fall with an apple cake (I was too lazy to do up a pie.) from one of my favourite sites, Smitten Kitchen. My cake was done a little before the stipulated 1 1/2 hours, so do watch it closely a little after an hour. The only change I made was to use 1 1/3 cups of sugar (instead of 2) in the cake, half brown sugar and half white.  We don’t wear bulky clothes here during fall and winter, so I still got to watch my weight eh?

Apple Cake

(Adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

6 apples, (I used 4 medium and 2 large Fuji)
1 tablespoon cinnamon
4 1/2 tablespoons sugar

2 3/4 cups flour, sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 175C. Grease a 9 or 10 inch tube pan. Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon and sugar and set aside.

2. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated.

3. Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Spread half of apples over it. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Bake for about 1 hour and 20 mins, or until a tester comes out clean.