The disappearing cake (a.k.a. easiest apple-cinnamon cake ever)

A lot of recipes claim they're quick and easy. Sometimes that's when I stop reading, simply because I get tired of everything these days having to be quick and easy. Cooking. Baking. Gardening. DIY projects. What ever happened to taking the time and learning to do something more difficult?

However, with two kids, a house, a job and my by now well-known to do list, sometimes I need just that: a quick and easy recipe. Especially if it has apples and cinnamon in it. And there is some glorious sunshine outside that makes you want to go outside looking for brightly colored leaves rather than bake all day.

Enter this recipe I saw at Apartment Therapy's The Kitchn the other day. Jogurt. Apples. And did I mention cinnamon? Yum. So I tried it out on Friday, after dropping off my stack of clothes to be sold and taking way too many pictures of Noelle.

So while my camera batteries were about to die and the back-up of course wasn't charge since I very rarely need it, I tried snapping some quick pictures of the process.

The changes I made to the recipe were

- using low-fat jogurt since that was all I had in these quantities (I didn't manage to make a fresh batch of my jogurt the day before)
- using some of this great apple seasoning a friend of mine gave me, because it also contains nutmeg and my nutmegs happened to be used up the night before. Oh well. Guess some allspice wouldn't hurt here, either.

- measuring some of the ingredients. I don't really get why you guys use cups for everything. I'm fine with measuring cups for olive oil, but seriously, flour? Messy and not precise, if you ask me. So for the record, I used 340g flour.
- adding another egg, since the ones I could get here were tiny. I only buy organic eggs and usually that means I need to buy the size that's available, no choice here.
- oh, and I used (organic all natural) vanilla sugar, lowering the remaining sugar accordingly, instead of vanilla extract, because that's just more widely availble in Germany.
- adding lemon zest. If I use an entire lemon on the recipe (and you guessed it, I buy organic ones...), I figured I might just as well add some zest.

None of this seemed to be a problem. The recipe is extremely easy to make, bakes well and comes out of the pan easily.

And it's soooooooo good. In fact, two tiny pieces is all that is left today. And I made the cake yesterday. So yes, it nice and moist and probably keeps well, but you're not likely to find out because it will all be gone.

Juicy apple pieces, the cinnamon sugar and light, moist texture from jogurt and olive oil. This one's a keeper!

What's your favorite apple cake?