Blogging and Baking

As I sit on my couch, blog surfing and updating my blog, I thought today would be a good day to bake. Something with apples since I had four apples leftover from my weekend of peeling and slicing. I peeled and sliced 24 apples, thank goodness I have one of those apple peeler, corer and slicer....I hate peeling by hand. Then I make an apple pie sauce that you pour over the apples and toss them in. YUMMY! The best apple pie ever, I think. So I froze 3 bags of apple pie filling and I had some leftover apples and thought I'd make one of my other favorite apple desserts: Cinnamon Apple Cake, courtesy of Cooking Light Magazine:

I know the image is blurry, so I'll type it out for you.

Your dry and wet ingredients

So first off, you'll cream together:

1 1/2 cups of sugar

3/4 Cup of block style creamcheese(Cooking Light uses Neufachetl but I didn't have any so I used the regular)softend

1 Stick of softend butter

1 t Vanilla

Beat together until creamy and well combined

Then add 2 eggs, one at a time until well combined

I just realized my pictures are displayed backwards. OOPS! The dry ingredients are next, which is the fourth picture down. Sorry.

Dry Ingredients:

1 1/2 Cups of flour

1 1/2 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

mix in seperate bowl then add to wet ingredients a little at a time, making sure its thoroughly combined between each addition. The batter is pretty thick.

Now your apples.

Peel, and chop apples to make 3 cups.

In a small bowl combine:

2 t cinnamon

1/4 cup of sugar

You will then toss half of this mixture with the apples until well coated.

Then you will spray your 8 inch spring form pan and sprinkle with the cinnamon/sugare mixture until pan is completely coated, you should have a little bit of the cinnamon mix left over. Save that for the topping.

Next you will fold apples into batter carefully until just combined. Now pour batter into prepared pan, carefully spread batter in pan then sprinkle remaining cinnamon and sugar over top until covered.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes. I did it for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Your home will smell wonderful. The smell of the cinnamon and apples is amazing. Let it cool in pan before removing sides.

There it is.

Now make some coffee or tea and have a big piece. It's great to eat while warm. This dessert is a hit when we have company. It's rustic looking and so moist. I make this several times during fall/winter time. Its quick to make and everyone loves it. Now I'm ready for another big piece. Hope you have a chance to make it, you won't regret it, or maybe you will.....LOL. Enjoy!

Creative Bloggers Out There

I'm amazed how many bloggers there are out there in the internet world. So many to look at and choose from. But there are a few that I really enjoy reading, and looking at their pictures. The way they write their stories. How they take their pictures and post them. There are many creative bloggers out there and they're fun to read. So I chose 10 bloggers that I thoroughly enjoy and I want to give them an award.

This award was given to me by Melissa, from The Vintage Attic. She's the one who pushed me into blogging and now I can't stop. So here are my choices:

1- My Romantic Home
2- Cynthia's Cottage Design
3- Parisienne Farmgirl
4- A Romantic Country Home
5- A Romantic Porch
6- An Enchanted Cottage
7- Southern Hospitality
8- The Beehive Cottage
9- The Classic Farmhouse
10- Jane's Sweets Baking Journal

Although these are only few of many, it's your turn to pass on this award to your favorite bloggers as well. Congratulations on doing a great job with your blogs and posting beautiful pictures.