I think this is the best cake I’ve ever made! And this must mean something coming from me since desserts are not exactly my specialty, as you already know! My daughter used to tease me and say that I’ve probably never made a proper cake in my life. You know, these wonderful, fluffy, perfect cakes that all kids love! And she wasn’t wrong.

Honestly, I did try my best but.. Every time I opened a cookbook to find the perfect cake for the occasion, I ended up making the same, completely different to the original, version of the recipe. Why? Because seeing the amounts of sugar and butter that I’d need to use filled me with utter terror! I always believed that there’s absolutely no reason at all to load a kid’s diet with such large quantities of sugar and fats.

There’s nothing wrong with having a “proper” sugary cake, if that happens every once in a while. But if it’s incorporated into a kid’s daily menu, it will eventually have a negative effect. Excessive consumption of sugar and fats isn’t only harmful, it leads to building a quite strong and addictive habit as well. I also believe that kids will only eat what they find at home. If they’re not used to finding tons of candy/chocolate/lollipops at home, they won’t be looking for them. That doesn’t mean they won’t ever eat any of that. Instead, desserts can be linked with certain situations and special occasions so that kids know there are boundaries concerning what we eat and when.

When I was growing up, and for younger generations as well, desserts worked as a reward for children, as an extra motivation for them to do their homework, recite a poem for the family, tidy up their room or even eat their meal! “If you do that, I’ll give you candy!” I’m very happy to see that most, especially young, parents have a very different approach these days and try to be very cautious when it comes to sugar consumption.

So, as a concerned parent trying to do the right thing for my daughter, I occasionally attempted to follow some lovely cake recipes but at some point I’d inevitably start cheating; I’d reduce the amount of sugar and butter, replace butter with olive oil, use more apples or carrots than necessary.. As you can imagine, my cake tasted and looked nothing like the classic “perfect” cake.

As the years went by, ingredients got better, some were replaced by new ones, we started learning and using new techniques and here we are; nowadays, it’s a lot easier for anyone to achieve a much healthier but still impressive result.

I picked some lovely fresh apples from our trees today. Such beautiful colours! Although this hasn’t been exactly their year, they’re still so delicious and fragrant. Fall isn’t fall without a “proper” apple cake, right? With that in mind, I spent the last couple of days looking for the perfect apple cake recipe but nothing really clicked. So, right before we left for our weekend in the mountains, I packed all the cake-appropriate ingredients we had at home that could come in handy. A few hours later, I started making a cake without knowing exactly what I was going to do but taking pictures of my apples would obviously be the first step, as always!

Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers would often say something like: “my pie isn’t any good today” or “I made the perfect pot roast today!” And I really think there’s something magic about timing in cooking. There are days that you don’t really do anything different, it’s just that the ingredients blend so perfectly together or perhaps you’re in a very good mood and put all your love into your cooking, maybe you have plenty of free time or feel more relaxed.. And just like that, out of nowhere, you’ve created a masterpiece!

I’ve noticed that anything I cook when we’re in the mountains, despite the lack of basic comforts, tastes so much more delicious than usually. Even the pictures of my dishes look much better there. It’s as if there’s more to it than just cooking, more than just the ingredients or recipes. Perhaps the secret lies in all these beautiful colours of nature that surround you, the fresh ingredients, the fact that you feel the soil under your feet and let yourself loose.. Perhaps. Either way, it does happen.

Today, I’ve decided to use coconut oil in my cake, as I tend to do quite regularly. Fresh eggs from our chickens, brown sugar and the tiniest bit of granulated sugar (I measured everything by eye, so let’s hope I’ll get the recipe right for the blog), cinnamon, vanilla, ground nuts, unpeeled apples.. These super simple ingredients -beaten with an ancient hand mixer and baked in an old oven- transformed into the most wonderful, juiciest and most fragrant cake I’ve ever made! Told you, timing is everything!