Sweater Weather

Ah, fall. The air grows chilly, the wind is brisker, the leaves change colors, rainstorms abound.

Almost...none of this has happened. We had rain yesterday, but it felt more like a quick summery shower with some thunder and lightening thrown in. In my desire to hasten autumn along, I made this apple cake, which is less like a cake and more like an explosion of apples barely held together by a custard-like cake binder. The recipe is from the New York Times, and for some reason, I have a paper copy of it. Thanks to the good people at the Times, who have recently seen fit to open their archives to all, we see that it was published September 22, 2004. This all leads me to believe I probably bought the paper in the airport on the way back to the start of my third year of college. Which why would we be talking about now, since I made the cake a few days ago? Right. Here are all the apple slices in a bowl. This was sort of a pain. Here are...all the slices in a pan! (Not to be confused with previous photo.) But really, this is much more apple than cake. It is also...slightly too full, as I discovered when I was settling down to read my chemistry textbook while it was baking, only to be interrupted by the smoke alarm going off. Repeatedly. The very high ceilings of the apartment mean that this involves me jumping up and down a lot trying to wave the smoke away. Thankfully, roommates were not home. Although the smoke alarm did go off the next two times the oven was used, when they were here. On to other things that probably appall my roommates, this is the carnage leftover from peeling, coring, and slicing five apples. Which I cleaned up promptly, of course. And, the finished cake. The issue with the smoke alarm meant I took it out of the oven about 10 minutes before I would have normally, but the apples are nicely caramelized, and the cake was halfway between cake and custard. All persons partaking of it approved.