Yet another BAKING recipe

We had borscht at Matt and Sarah's last night, and I'll be doing a bit of preparing for all of the Thanksgiving guests who have suddenly and slightly last-minutely accepted our invitations, so I've not been doing a lot of cooking. (Although this looks delicious...)

What we have been doing is decluttering our house, starting back when we thought we'd be moving from our current two-bedroom sprawler into a refrigerator box with no storage, and continuing, even after we got the stay-notice, through this weekend, when we realized how satisfying it's been!

The suddenly large rooms with minimal furniture and no surface clutter had left me, at the end of the weekend, feeling a little frazzly about my "workspace", most specifically my spices and recipes area. I have two spice areas, since the first area we set up was too small for my incredible collection of pretty much every spice there is except for...(Hmm...I can't think of one I don't have. Challenge me, anyone? I'm about spices like some women are about shoes and if there's one I don't have, I'd sure like to know about it so I can get it! I even have REAL Hungarian paprika, thanks to Emma!) The two areas are on opposite sides of the baking counter, and sometimes the Basil would be here, sometimes it'd be over there, but mostly it's wherever I put it down the last time I used it. (Which would be in a precarious balance on the edge of that narrow shelf by the stove, because I'd just made soup...) Rinse, repeat for every other bottle and jar.

Yesterday I organized the spices. Baking spices on the right hand side, above the jars of flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and soda, and the weeny jar of crystallized ginger I use for muffins, cooking spices on the left, farther from the stove, but there's more room for them there.

Today, I bravely unhooked my recipe clipboard from its nail between the spice shelves, and spent the morning sorting through the pile of recipes that have been accumulating for a looooong time. "Keep and file", "keep, and copy into my little notebook I put The Favorites in, and file", or "realize that this particular project will never happen and recycle it to someone else".

In the process, I found this recipe for Apple Cake that Matt Newhall helped me make the last time he was here. Which was the end of October, and that paper was not even halfway down the stack! I think it's from allrecipes.com.

Apple Cake

Preheat the oven to 350 and grease and flour a Bundt pan.

Combine 2 c peeled, cored and diced apples with 1 tbs white sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon, and set aside.

Sift together 3 c flour, 3 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine 2 c white sugar (I usually use half white half brown, actually, when baking with apples of pears), 1 c vegetable oil , 1/4 c orange juice, 2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and 4 eggs. Beat until smooth.

Stir in the flour mixture, then fold in 1 c chopped walnuts.

Pour a third of the batter into the pan, and top with 1/2 the apple mixture. Repeat. Top with remaining third of batter.

Bake 55-60 minutes, or until the top springs back when gently touched. Cool in pan ten minutes before turning onto rack.

Sprinkle with 1/4 cup of confectioner's sugar. (We actually did not do this.)

This cake was moist and delicious, with a crispness to the edges that was absolutely dreamy!