The Best Apple Cake You'll Ever Make

This recipe, like many others, are from my grandmother. I bake one every year for the holidays. Simple, but take it to a potluck and everyone will want your recipe!

Mamaw Ashby's Apple Cake

1 cup vegetable oil (you can use melted butter as long as it's one cup)
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
3 cups chopped apples
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg (you can use just 1/2 teaspoon of each if you want a milder taste)
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and grease a 9x13 pan.

Mix wet ingredients together. Sift the dry ingredients, taking a teaspoon of the dry mix and tossing with the apples and nuts (this will make sure the apples and nuts don't sink to the bottom of the cake.) Mix the dry ingredients with the wet just until combined, then fold in the apples and nuts. Pour into greased pan, bake at 350 degrees about 40 - 45 minutes, or until the cake bounces back in the middle when you touch it, or a toothpick comes out clean.

You can let it cool, but it's incredible served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or my grandmother's favorite, a scoop of buttered pecan. Yum!

Catt's Wheat Fudge / No-bake Cookies

This is the first thing I ever made - I think it was in elementary school, and I don't know why it was called Wheat Fudge. What I do know, is you can buy them made my Lofthouse, $3.99 for 8 cookies. Yikes.

Wheat Fudge

2 cups sugar
1 stick margarine
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 cup milk
3 cups quick oats
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

In heave saucepan, combine sugar, margarine, cocoa, and milk. Stir and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly and boiling for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and quickly fold in peanut butter and vanilla. Next add the oats, stirring rapidly. Drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper. Cool & enjoy!

Great gift item too for the holidays!

Dump Cakes!

If you've ever been to any kind of church or organization pot luck event, you've probably had Dump Cake. My mother, for years, belonged to a group at our church called the "Livewires". It was a senior adult group which met twice a month, took trips, and had potluck luncheons at their meetings. I would go and help out in the kitchen, I baked their turkeys at Thanksgiving, and hams at Christmas. Every luncheon, you could find several Dump Cakes. Not only are they delicious, you can prepare it and bake it off the morning of the event. They are great served alone, but even better with whipped cream or ice cream. Here are my mom's recipe and my pumpkin recipe.

Catt's Fruit Dump Cake

1 can cherry pie filling
1 - 20 oz can crushed pineapple
1 box yellow cake mix
1 1/4 stick margarine, sliced
1/2 cups nuts, chopped (walnuts, pecans, almonds)

Spread pie filling in 9 x 13 greased pan. Scatter pineapple over pie filling. Sprinkle dry cake mix over that. Drop margarine slices over dry cake mix. Scatter nuts. DO NOT STIR.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or until brown.

The flavors above are just a suggestion: you can use:

Blueberry pie filling with crushed pineapple and a white cake mix:

Apple pie filling, a can of whole cranberries with yellow or spice cake mix:

Cherry pie filling, omit the pineapple and use a chocolate cake mix, like a black forest cake:

Raspberry pie filling, pineapple or peaches, French vanilla cake mix;

Peach pie filling and some frozen raspberries with a white or yellow cake mix;

You can certainly omit the nuts – or use coconut which gives it a tropical flair.

Melt the butter and pour it over the cake if that's easier for you.

Catt's Pumpkin Dump Cake

1 (29 oz.) can pumpkin
1 (12 oz.) can evaporated milk
1 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
3 eggs
1 box yellow cake mix
1 cup pecans (chopped)
1 cup butter or margarine (melted)

Beat together pumpkin, milk, sugar, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, and eggs. Pour into 9x12 greased baking dish. Sprinkle the dry cake mix evenly over the pumpkin mixture, then sprinkle on pecans. Drizzle melted butter over the top. Bake at 350 for1 hour. Cool slightly. Top with whipping cream, and enjoy. This is a great alternative to pumpkin pie at the holidays. If you take this to a party, be sure you take the recipe, because everyone will want to know!

YOLANDA’S YUMMIEST SWEET POTATO PIE

INGREDIENTS:
· 2 Pillsbury unbaked 9-inch pie shells
· 2 large cans Bruce’s Cut Sweet Potatoes, drained
· 1 stick of sweet cream butter, softened
· 1/3 cup Karo Dark Corn Syrup
· 1 tablespoon molasses
· 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
· 1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk
· 2 large eggs, beaten
· 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
· 1/8 teaspoon salt
· 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
· 1 tablespoon ground nutmeg
· 1 pint Heavy Whipping Cream
· ½ cup confectioners sugar


DIRECTIONS:

1. PREHEAT oven to 425° F.

2. PRICK entire bottom of pie shells with fork, and BAKE for 15 minutes. Allow to cool.

3. MICROWAVE sweet potatoes and butter in large bowl for 3-4 minutes. Mash thoroughly
with fork. Stir in Karo syrup, molasses, brown sugar, condensed milk, and eggs. Stir in
vanilla extract, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.

4. POUR mixture into prepared pie shells.

5. BAKE at 425° F for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350° F and continue to bake for 30 to 40
minutes, or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours.

6. WHIP heavy cream together with confectioner’s sugar until soft peaks form.

My Sister's Oatmeal Carmelitas

This is the best thing I have, without a doubt, eaten in my life. When my sister makes them and brings them to my house, I forget the cheesecakes, cookies, fudge, and pies. I eat only these.


But I think it is what I am reminded of when I eat them. As I take a bite, I can see myself back in the late 60's and early 70's. I was in about the 4th grade I think. I had a teacher who was a little standoffish. Around thanksgiving, I took a box with a new dessert my sister had made, called Oatmeal Carmelita's. My teacher at the end of the day called me aside and told me she wanted to talk to my mother when she came to pick me up. So she walked out with me to the car, and asked my mother to make some of those bars for her to mail someone, she had someone very special. My mom agreed and my teacher said she would pay for all the ingredients, and anything else she wanted to make was ok. So off we went, and my sister and mother got busy. They baked cookies, made fudge, and then my sister made the Oatmeal Carmelita's. So when my mother came to get me from school a few days later, my mom walked in with a big box of goodies. My teacher had some money in her hand, and my mother was telling her the best way to package them. My mother was somewhat of an expert, my brother had just returned from a few years in Japan in the Air Force.

After the conversation, my mother asked her whom she was sending these too. And I will never forget my teacher’s response. She said, "My younger brother is in Vietnam. He will be there for the holidays, and a lot of the guys are getting homemade things to share on Christmas Day. I thought there would be perfect for him, because after all.........we worry about him, you know? My mother makes herself sick every time it is on the news. We will miss him this year, and I want him to know how much we are thinking of him." The tears welled up in my mother's eyes. She was lucky enough to have her son home, and her heart went out to my teacher. As my teacher pushed the money in my mother’s hand, I watched my mother gently push the money back, and she reached out and hugged my teacher. She would not take any money, and when my teacher insisted, she told my teacher to instead save it for when her brother comes home, and buy him an extra special Christmas gift. My teacher cried, and later told me what a wonderful mom I had.



As if I didn't know.

Oatmeal Carmelita's


1 cup all purpose flour, sifted
1 cup quick cooking oats
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup margarine
1 cup chocolate chips
½ cup nuts (walnuts or pecans)
3/4 cup caramel ice cream topping
3 tbsp flour



Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, soda, salt and margarine. Blend well at low speed to form crumbs. Press half the crumbs into an 11 x 7 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and nuts. Blend caramel topping and 3 tbsp flour. Pour over chocolate chips and nuts to cover. Sprinkle with remaining crumbs. Bake 20 - 25 minutes, until done. If you have any doubts about the way your oven heats, start checking this after 15 minutes. I also line my pan with parchment paper, and I let it hang over the sides - that way I can chill them, lift it out with the parchment paper, and cut them in squares using a pizza cutter.

And just to show you how darn cute I was, I called these "carmel eaters" when I was a kid.