Cheddar Biscuits and Apple Cake

Yes, apples. In a cake. I know, it seems profane not to rip into the apples and eat half of them the moment you get home from the grocery store, but I resisted. And had the brains to hide them lest my stepsisters fall upon them as if they hadn't eaten in a month. (Yes, that happens with pretty much any fruit that enters my house.) One of the cool things about German desserts is that EVERYTHING has fruit in it. Danishes? German. Traditional kolaches? German. Black forest cake? You guessed it. German.

So I made a German Apple Cake with a few tweaks of my own, and it came out pretty good... except the frosting. I was going by a recipe and making minor adjustments, and the frosting came out sweet. Like really, really sweet. Like almost inedible sweet. For me anyway; my frosting-loving mom ate it with no problem, but just tasting it made me nauseous. (I'm also the one who can't stomach eating milk chocolate because of the sweetness, so it may just be me.) The only thing I changed with the frosting was adding some cinnamon and nutmeg, and for the cake itself, I used a trio of apples (two Granny Smith, one Golden Delicious and one Red Delicious) instead of the recommended four Granny Smiths. I would recommend just using whatever you like, or whatever happens to be on sale, which is what I did. Four apples for a buck! I also used pecans instead of walnuts... I live in Texas, after all, and pecans are free here as long as you're patient enough to shell the suckers.

German Apple Cake
* 2 large eggs
* 1/2 c vegetable or canola oil
* 2 c granulated sugar
* 1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
* 1/2 c cake flour (you could omit this and use another 1/2 c all-purpose instead. This is just to make a more tender cake.)
* 2 t cinnamon
* 1 t baking soda
* 1/2 t salt
* 1 t vanilla extract
* 4 apples, cored and peeled, then grated; get a mix for a variety of flavors
* 1/2 c chopped pecans
* 8 oz low-fat cream cheese
* 4 t unsalted softened butter
* 1 1/2 t vanilla extract
* 1 t cinnamon
* pinch nutmeg
* 2 c confectioners' sugar
1. Beat eggs and oil until creamy and pale yellow. Add in granulated sugar, flours, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and vanilla.
2. Add apples (squeeze out excess moisture first) and nuts. Spread into a buttered and floured 9x13 pan and pop into a 350F oven for 35-40 minutes or until it passes to toothpick test. Turn out onto rack and let cool.
3. Beat cream cheese, butter, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg until smooth and fluffy. Beat in sugar a bit at a time. Ice cake. (I cut my cake into quarters and made two little two-layer cakes.)

I think that next time, I will adjust the sugar to cream cheese ratio so it will not be as sweet. The above is for the sweet icing.

As for the cheddar biscuits, I was trying to think of what I can make with no salt (we have none), and I thought I would try that old Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuit recipe that's been all over the internet. You know, the one that uses Bisquick? (Well, I'm a cheapass, so I used Quick Biscuit, but you know.) I won't bother posting it up here, since that's kind of redundant and you can find the recipe on a million different pages, but the only think I changed was that instead of mixing melted butter and garlic powder, I melted the butter in a skillet, threw in a few smashed cloves of garlic, and sauteed the garlic a bit. Then I pulled the garlic out so there wouldn't be big chunks. I also added some Italian seasoning to it. I'm not really sure why, I just thought I would try it. The biscuits disappeared before I could get a picture.