A small, square, glass jar sits tucked away in the corner of my kitchen counter.  Both the jar and the recipes inside belonged to my Grandma.  I also have her little black book in which there are pages filled with ingredients and instructions, written in her most identifiable penmanship.  And there is an envelope, stuffed to capacity with recipes clipped from the newspaper, labels snipped from jars and cans, and other hand written treasures that are worth gold to me.  When I’m missing her, I can find her among these pages and papers.  She comes alive there, and together we travel back in time to the little nook in her kitchen where she spent endless hours kneading dough, mixing batter, and preparing the most delicious food, effortlessly and with quiet grace.

I have poured through her recipes countless times, and yet, each time something new catches my attention.  Most recently it was this cake.  Next to the name Apple Cake in the title, Grandma had written (Mae’s).  I don’t know who Mae was.  My mom has no memory of her being a relative.  Maybe she was a co-worker or an acquaintance from the neighborhood hair salon.  In any event, I felt it was important to credit her with the recipe – after all, Grandma thought enough of her to do so as well.
As I prepared to bake this cake, it occurred to me just how similar it was to a carrot cake. Curiously, there were no spices at all in the list of ingredients, so I included some cinnamon, ginger, and mace to compliment the flavor of the apples.  I also reduced the amount of sugar.  The directions as written were limited and vague and I had questions that were impossible to have answered.  If only I could commune with Grandma to find out how she had served this cake.  Since it made two 9-inch layers, I assumed it was supposed to be stacked and frosted,  but then the recipe included instruction for making a Brown Sugar Glaze  – presumably for spreading over the tops of each layer.  And once out of the oven, there was more evidence that the two cakes were most likely intended to be served as single layers.  The tops of the cakes were mottled with dimples formed from chunks of apples and nuts.  I could imagine the brown sugar glaze settling into those dimples just as butter melts into the nooks and crannies of a toasted english muffin.
In the end, I chose to stack the layers and ice them with a brown butter frosting.  The browned butter lent a “maple-y” essence that was a perfect compliment to the apples and walnuts.  Along with the frosting recipe, I have also shared the recipe for the glaze.  I wanted to retain the originality of the cake as it was passed from Mae, to Grandma, to me, and ultimately to you.

While sifting around the internet today, I easily happened upon more than one version of apple cake almost identical to this one.  Admittedly,  this isn’t the most original cake floating around the blogosphere.  But originality isn’t  the point of my post. It’s about sharing and connection and honoring and preserving the memory of those who shared a piece of their lives with us by documenting their experiences in the kitchen.