“Dark, moist and chunky, with a dream of a glaze.”

This is the only introduction Julee and Sheila give us to this dessert. (Which has fruit in it so of course naturally doubles as breakfast…) You can imagine after envisioning this “dream of a glaze” how disappointed I was to have botched the attempt at making fantasy reality. My glaze lacked substance; it saturated the cake instead of adorning it with the glassy drizzle I had anticipated.

In looking around, it seems glaze sets very quickly, so you have a very small window in which to work before it sets.  Perhaps I didn’t bring it to a full boil or cooked it too long? Anyone with tips on cake glazes, I’d love to hear from you!

The cake still tasted great, was more than moist, and smelled like Thanksgiving and Christmas all in one. Walnuts make baked goods taste so good and I recently learned that if your walnuts ever go blue (or your sunflower seeds green) during baking, you’ve just used too much much baking soda or fallen short on thoroughly mixing the batter. The concentrations of acidity interact with the sensitive pigments of these foods.

Chunky Apple Walnut Cake, along with the White Bean and Ham Salad, came camping with us. This too, passed the camping test.

Chunky Apple Walnut Cake
One 10-inch cake, 10 to 12 portions

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 cups granulated sugar
3 eggs
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground mace
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole-wheat flour, sifted
1 1/4 cups shelled walnuts, coarsely chopped
3 1/4 cups coarse chunks of peeled and cored Rome Beauty apples
3 tablespoons Calvados or applejack
Apple Cider Glaze (recipe follows)

1. Preheat oven to 325°F.

2. In a large bowl, beat vegetable oil and sugar until thick and opaque. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

3. Sift together all-purpose flour, cloves, cinnamon, mace, baking soda and salt, then stir in whole-wheat flour. Add to oil and egg mixture and mix until well blended. (Mixture will be real thick.)

4. Add walnuts, apple chunks and Calvados all at once and stir batter until pieces are evenly distributed.

5. Pour batter into a greased 10-inch round cake pan. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.

6. Let cake rest for 10 minutes, then unmold and pour glaze over warm cake, or cut cake and pour glaze over slices.

Apple Cider Glaze
Makes 1 1/2 cups glaze

4 tablespoons sweet butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons Calvados or applejack
4 tablespoons sweet cider
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
2 tablespoons heavy cream

1. Melt butter in a small saucepan and stir in both sugars.

2. Add remaining ingredients, stir, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat slightly and cook for 4 minutes.

3. Remove from heat and cool slightly. Pour while still warm over warm cake.