Serves One Sindha or Six People 

This cake is known in the vegan underground scene as the “Big Apple Sensation Cake.” By that I mean: that’s what my mom calls it.

Q: Sindha, What is a “Sensation Cake”
A: A cake which is sensational

Q: What is a “Big Apple?”
A: It’s the nickname for New York City, where I live.

I am an avoidance baker. Whenever I have a really pressing deadline, something that I should absolutely devote my whole day to doing, I have been known to undertake a complicated baking project instead. I am also an avoidance sleeper. Oh, and an avoidance headstand-undertaker.

So, today, when I had a million things I should have been doing, I slept until 3pm, ate breakfast at 5pm, and then spent a while inventing a recipe. No headstands though.

But joke’s on me, I really don’t have that many ingredients in my new apartment. I couldn’t make my go-to elaborate recipe: raspberry filled chocolate cupcakes topped with chocolate ganache and drizzled in raspberry sauce (yes, I’ll post that recipe someday).

After much scrounging I managed to gather enough flour, sugar, and apples to make an apple cake. It turned out to be sensational. It’s dense and moist, almost like a mix between flourless cake and lemon bars. My mom—Hi Mom! Love you!—came up with the title.

The cake is in fact so sensational that I couldn’t keep myself from eating a piece before taking pictures. Oops.

This one goes out to all the creative procrastinators.

Ingredients

• Five apples of your choice (I used McIntosh, my favorite!)
• 2 tbsp of apple cider, apple juice, or water
• 2.5 cups of all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 3 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2/3 cup of sugar 
• 1 cup of almond milk (soy would work fine too!)
• Juice of one lemon 
• 1/2 cup canola oil

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, oil a round cake pan generously.
2. Dice up three apples (go ahead and keep those peels).
3. Pour apple cider/apple juice/water and diced apples into pot, and cook covered on a medium low temperature until a thick applesauce is formed. Stir occasionally.
4. While the applesauce cooks, mix together all of the dry ingredients in a bowl except for the sugar.
5. In a separate bowl, mix the almond milk and lemon juice. Leave it to sit for a few minutes so that the milk curdles a little. Then add the oil.
6. Slice the two remaining apples for adding to the top of the cake for decoration.
7. Take the applesauce off of the heat and stir in the sugar immediately so that the sugar melts. Leave it to cool for five minutes.
8. Add the applesauce to the liquid mixture and stir. Then add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients, mixing  until fully incorporated.
9. Pour the batter into the oiled cake pan.  Place the sliced apples on top in any pattern you desire.
10. Bake for 50 minutes at 375 degrees. Then remove, cool, and singlehandedly eat the entire thing in two days.