Blog #176: I'm not a food blogger I just play one on TV.

That's a lie no one lets me on TV. I've got a face for radio. Well, in high school I was on KHS TV quite regularly as an anchor for our school news program but that just aired within the school. I took part in a segment or 2 of the news magazine our school did that was on an actual cable access channel several times - one of which involved me doing a snow day dance in pajama pants in an episode that aired a few times even after I was in college. Yes, I am the most embarrassing person I know. Thank you.

 But that's not the point. I wanted to share with the internet a thing I did. It might not really be all that original. I didn't bother to do a search to see if anyone else already thought of it. In fact, the very thing itself is really derivative of another thing so by definition it's not original. But I still feel good about it. I sort of made my own recipe for Apple Cake.

 It all started with a recipe in a giant Taste of Home cookbook for carrot cake from scratch that I make every year for Easter. It's always such a hit because it also includes homemade cream cheese frosting so I wanted to find a way to make it work for Thanksgiving, too. But carrot cake is such a spring thing that I knew it would be out of place at a Thanksgiving dinner. So, what did I do? I decided to replace shredded carrots with peeled shredded apples. That makes it a super moist ridiculously awesome APPLE CAKE.

 Here's the original carrot cake recipe:

Yes, it's filthy. A good baker makes a good mess.

And seriously it did not take many tweaks. Replace carrots with apples. Throw in a teaspoon of apple pie spice along with the already called for spices (which is really just more of each spice already called for because that's how spice blends work). I also put a teaspoon of cinnamon in the frosting because it sounded like the right thing to do. I wanted to top it off with drizzles of Pioneer Woman's Caramel Sauce recipe because I'm a bad, bad girl but at the last minute I realized I didn't have enough brown sugar. Yeah, the stores were still open but you better believe I'm not going to the store Thanksgiving morning.

Don't be jealous of my chic baking wear.

Peeling is my least favorite part

Shredded apples!

yeah, I licked the spoon clean. AFTER I was done using it.

The frosting will make it all better

I licked this spoon when I was done too.

One good thing to do is to make the cake while wearing your pajamas and then while it is cooking and cooling you spend time getting into the Thanksgiving uniform of stretchy pants and a loose fitting forgiving sweater.

 Voila!!

Cake got RAVE reviews. So did my hair.

You, too, can be domestic genius. I made this cake while watching the Thanksgiving day parade and dancing in my kitchen to every musical performance. You don't HAVE to do it that way but I don't know why you wouldn't. (Still the most embarrassing person I know. Thank you.)