Recipe: Apple Cake

Hello!  Long time, no post (again).

Anywhooo - Fall as arrived and we took full advantage this past weekend and went to Pumpkintown, USA here in Connecticut followed by some apple picking.

I scored some white pumpkins at the farm and then this week I found a cute "Give Thanks" sign at Target to enhance our family room decor - which can totally apply to both Halloween and Thanksgiving. Multitasking!  The leaves and foliage are really starting to come out and I'm loving Fall - in case you couldn't already tell.

My Fall Mantle - not done yet!

If you've visited here before, you may know I'm following the Trim Healthy Mama way of eating and I have had some great success lately after some pounds creeped back on over the summer and vacation in August.

I'm happy to be back on track and at an almost all time low weight and smaller inch-wise after I finished a three week Fuel Cycle.  I'm happy to report that I'm currently wearing today a pair of true pre-pregnancy pants - cute capri pants I haven't worn since ohhhh 2007 maybe?! I'm SO happy to see my efforts on the scale and in my clothing and how things are fitting!

However, this post is a recipe post so I'll post a full and detailed re-cap on that soon enough to share with you.

Onto the apple recipe!

I came across this recipe from Julia's Album somewhere (Facebook or Pinterest maybe? I get around...the Internet...hah!) and decided I needed to use up some of these fresh apples we picked.

I modified it to my THM guidelines and this would be considered an E (Energizing) dessert or snack.
So again, not my recipe but tweaked for my purposes!

Apple Cake - THM version
This recipe could also be gluten free if you use certified gluten free oat flour or grind your own gluten free oats!  The apple sauce and greek  yogurt make this cake very tasty and light!  

Ingredients:

• 3 medium apples, peeled, cored, and chopped into chunks
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 4 tablespoons brown sugar (NOTE: you can use a THM version of Gwen's brown sugar but I used a tiny bit of real brown sugar but it's up to you!) 
• 1 and 1/4 cup oat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup on plan sweetner - I used a combination of Truvia and pure stevia extract (original recipe called for 1 cup regular sugar)
• 1/2 cup apple sauce (original called for oil)
• 1/3 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 egg whites (original recipe called for 2 eggs)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and also grease a square pan - 9 by 9 or 8 by 8 is good

2.  In one bowl combine chopped apple pieces and cinamon and your choice of brown sugar - real or THM version. 

3. In another larger mixing bowl, combine oat flour, baking powder and salt.

Half the batter and half the apples

4. In yet another bowl - sorry for all the dirty dishes we are creating! - whisk together the sweetner of your choice, apple sauce, yogurt, egg whites and vanilla extract until combined. 

5. Add the dry items into the wet ingredients and combine completely - don't over mix!

6. Take about half the batter and pour into greased pan and take half the apple chunks and pour on that.  Then, layer on the rest of the other half of the batter and then top again with the other half of the apples. 

7.  Bake for one hour.

It smells soooo deelish in my house right now!  I can't wait to eat this recipe!  And a food blogger I clearly am not so I do apologize since as I am baking I'm all "oh hey, I should snap some pictures."

Finished baking!  Yummm

A food blogger wanna be I am - hot and fresh apple cake!

Wow, this does not disappoint!  It's warm, apple cakey goodness.  A must-make for sure!

Enjoy!
~Carly