Pioneer studies and Maple Apple Cake recipe

A and I have been studying pioneers the past few weeks. She is working her way through Little House is the Big Woods, and I am reading aloud Pioneer Sampler. She also read all the Caroline books from the Little House Chapter Book series. Of course we earned quite a bit about maple sugar, sugar snow, and the whole process of making maple syrup so that the family would have a sweetner all year long. We talked about how white sugar was hard to come by and expensive to boot, and then of course we needed to find a recipe that we could experiement with. Who woyuld have known that in that little project we would discover a new favorite family dessert. We have made this twice already in 2 weeks. It is amazing!
So without farther ado, I leave you with our recipe for Maple Apple Cake, and pictures of my beautiful A at work.

Measuring the ingredients...
 A little flour on the nose...perfect.
 grating the apple...
 The finished product...
 and now for the recipe...

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground ginger
a pinch of salt (about 1/8 of a tsp I guess)
4 TBS butter- softened
1 and 1/4 cups maple syrup
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 apple peeled and grated (I had granny smith on hand)
1/4 cup chopped pecans 
dried apple slices for garnish (I always have homemade ones on hand for quick snacks)

Combine the first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl. 
Preheat oven to 350
In a large bowl, cream softened butter with electric beater. Slowly add in the maple syrup and beat on low speed for 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing on medium until batter is smooth and fluffy...about 5 minutes.
Grate apple if you haven't already and then stir into mixture. Add chopped pecans.
Grease 9 inch round cake pan.
Pour mixture into pan and bake for 45-50 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. 
Let cool and remove from pan. 
Dust with powdered sugar and garnish with died apple slices.

Hot or cold, this is a perfect treat.
 Served warm with a dollop of vanilla ice cream for the perfect after dinner dessert, yet not to sweet to work cold as a quick morning breakfast. 
YUM!

Comments

Karin said…
Going to try the Maple Apple Cake recipe today! Thanks for the share!!