Delicious Desserts

This one will indicate just how far down I’ve come in terms of blog topics, resorting to several of my wife’s favorite recipes. This first one we got from a woman we met in Boulder, Colorado, when I was there working on a PhD in English in 1970. I’d never before heard of such a thing as apple pie cake and have never heard of it anywhere since. Yet it’s one of the best desserts I’ve ever tasted. And it’s so easy. Maybe it’s just my imagination; maybe lots of people out there have heard of it and have made it. Maybe not.

Apple Pie Cake
1 cup sugar
¼ cup butter
1 egg
1 cup flour
2 tbsp. hot water
⅛ tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp.vanilla
½ cup crushed walnuts
2½ cups diced raw apples
Mix all together.
Bake uncovered in 9” pie tin at 350º 45-60 minutes.
Top each serving with scoop ice cream or Kool Whip.

In about 1990, our sister-in-law Clarie Zimmer introduced us to what she called “Dough God.” It’s like the old-fashioned cinnamon rolls we knew as children that our mothers made, in a time when all the mothers we knew often made cinnamon rolls for their families. But Dough God is much easier than that old recipe. And, oh God, dough God, are they ever good.

Overnight Sticky Buns
15 or 16 frozen dough for dinner rolls
1 small pkg. vanilla pudding (not instant)
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup pecan or walnut pieces (or a combination of the two)
1 stick butter
1 tsp. cinnamon
Separate dough (still frozen) and place in Bundt pan (Doesn’t everyone still have a Bundt pan
somewhere hidden away in a cupboard?).
Melt butter and pour over rolls.
Mix dry pudding, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nuts and sprinkle over rolls.
Cover and let rise on counter overnight.
Bake at 350º for 30 minutes.
Let cool for 30 minutes, then turn onto cake plate.

This recipe will serve six to eight people . . . or two very hungry people . . . or two pigs. Each serving would probably be about 1500 calories, so one should not make it more than two or three times a year. Anymore often than that and you’d have a family of Pillsbury Dough Boys.