Quick Apple Streusel Coffee Cake

 I am kind of embarrassed by how long it took me to post this. I made this ... a while ago. It may have sat in my photos for a month. Maybe. Definitely.

A couple of months ago Dylan and I had bought some apple cinnamon flavored almonds. They were not good but I didn't want to just toss them out so the recipe search began. I added them to some muffins. Not too bad but I wanted to try something from scratch. I had apples that needed to be used and I love a good coffee cake. The quick apple streusel coffee cake from The Modern Family Cook Book, 1953 edition, by Meta Given fit the bill! And I love a good streusel topping!!

No special ingredients needed. I ended up using the apples I had on hand, 1 gala and 1 granny smith. 

Everything looks nice an normal. I decided to chop the fairly large. I wanted to make sure I could taste the apple and not just a hint of it.

Getting everything all mixed together. Melted shortening is gross looking. Just sayin.

Trying to work quickly before my apples start to brown...

All ready for the topping! I am always amazed how beautifully streusel topping comes together. It never looks like it is going to work and then you get a crisp, sweet topping. Wow!

I chopped up the apple cinnamon almonds and sprinkled over half of the coffee cake. Just in case it tasted like crap I would still have half a cake to enjoy. 

So, I totally forgot to take a picture of the baked goodies. I was a little busy. Probably. :) My kitchen smelled like autumn! Apples! Cinnamon! Cake!

This turned out to be a delicious and moist cake. Easy to make and easy to eat! The streusel topping added a nice sweet crunch to the top and even the side with the yucky almonds tasted great. The sugar coating from the almonds probably mixed with the streusel topping while it baked and lost a lot of the candy taste. The almonds added a nice extra flavor. I miss the swirl of cinnamon inside the cake but loved the chunks of apple. Also I thought that it made the perfect amount. Enough for dessert and breakfast the next day and a bit of sharing (if you want) but we didn't end up eating for a week straight. 

My Rating: Easy and tasty. Definitely a keeper!

Dylan's Rating: Great! Could use more cinnamon.

Red 'n' Hot Pie

In the middle of all the craziness, I am moving. Fun times! I will not be doing posts for a couple of weeks due to the move. I might squeeze in a cocktail, or two... I wanted to do one last baking adventure before everything ends up in boxes. I had a bag of apples that were starting to go bad. I had pie crusts in the freezer. Naturally I made an apple pie. But a normal apple pie is so boring. When I was searching for a pie last week I found this gem in the 1954 edition of Dishes Children Love published by the Culinary Arts Institute.

This cookbook has interesting recipes but I hate the way it is written. I prefer lists of ingredients and then the instructions. There is no need to mix them together!

 Here's the original recipe. Looks tasty!

I had everything except for red hots. I don't think that I every went out and bought red hots on purpose. Hot cinnamon is not my thing.

 Melting candy is fun!

 It actually took a little bit for all the candies to melt.

The apples turned so delightfully pink! I'm kinda nervous about the taste. It smells very hard sugar candy with a hint of cinnamon.

 But it look pretty!

 I suck at pie crusts so I stuck with a simple one.

Here it is baked for 10 at 450 and 15 at 350. The top crust does not look fully cooked so I stuck it in for 15 more minutes and then another 10 minutes. Basically adding up to the baking time of the regular apple pie.

Looks and smells amazing! It actually just smells like a regular cinnamon apple pie. Feel good about it now. I am taking it over to my folks for dessert and I didn't bring a back up. It better be at least okay.

Wow! What a nice pie! The candies added a nice subtle cinnamon flavor which I really enjoyed. While I used whatever apples I had on hand (I think they were slightly old Rome apples), this would probably taste even better with nice, tart apples. 

My Rating: Yum! I'll keep this recipe on hand. The pink apples are fun!

Family Rating: "Awesome!!!!" "Apple pie is my favorite pie and this was really good." 

Spicy Apple Coffee Cake

Sometimes I just have to move away from cookies. My coworkers don't always agree but I think they secretly like the variety. Flipping through the 1952 pamphlet 250 Breads, Biscuits and Rolls I found this interesting recipe: an apple coffee cake made with cheese... The idea of mixing cheese with apples does not appeal to me even though I know a lot of people who love to add a slice of sharp cheddar cheese to their apple pie. So I gave it a try.

 Short recipe. Looks easy! I just had to get 'nippy' cheese. Somehow I had zero extra sharp cheddar in my house! I am so embarrassed...

I decided to go with the round cake version.

It qualifies as healthy since it has apples in it.

The dough came together very easily. None of the cinnamon was used in the dough so I'm guessing the 'spicy' part of the title has to do with the cheese. I love the bits of cheese peaking through!

 Looking good so far!

I don't know how I made this look so pretty! I'm not known for 'pretty' food, delicious but not always nice to look at. I don't know what happened here bit I'll take it!

And it baked up even prettier! Yeah!

 It looks good and the cake is nice and moist...

....but all in all a bland cake. Even though I used extra sharp cheddar you could barely taste the cheese and all the spice was added to the topping. Traditionally coffee cake is not a very sweet cake but even eating this with coffee could not save it. This might work better as a sheet cake since there would be less cake and more apples.

My Rating: Boring. Probably will not make again.

Friends & Family Rating: I don't know. No one gave me their opinion.