It’s a lovely day to bake an apple cake.  It’s snowing.  Don’t want to go anywhere. Might as well fill the home with the fragrance of apples and cinnamon – it’ll tickle everyone’s fancy.

This recipe is brought to you by Kurt’s Gramma Audrey.  It’s easy, pretty fool-proof, and has an old-fashioned flavor and texture — light, crisp & meringue-like on the outside, densely moist and studded with apples on the inside.

Grandma Audrey’s Apple Cake
Grandma Audrey loved to ice her apple cake right out of the oven with an egg yolk and powdered sugar icing. Not wasting anything, she’d slip that extra egg white (not in the original recipe) into the cake batter… with a lot of love, of course.  An extra egg and love — now you know the secret.

2 cups flour
Pinch of kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2 eggs, divided
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups peeled & chopped apples

Preheat oven to 350°.  Butter or pan-spray a 10-inch springform pan; set aside.

Sift together flour, salt, soda and spices in medium bowl; set aside.

In mixing bowl stir together egg yolks, sugar, oil and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients and stir to combine.

In small bowl, whisk egg whites to stiff peaks; carefully fold into cake batter.  Fold in apples and love.  Pour into prepared pan.

Tip: the batter will seem too stiff to incorporate the dry ingredients; don’t worry about it.  Stir everything together the best you can – the apples will release their juices while baking and it will turn out fantastic. 

Bake until toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, about 50-60 minutes.