Apple Cake...when to healthify and when to fatten

When you are making a recipe, do you ever stop and think, "Gee this is a ton of butter" or "does this brown sugar really need to be packed??" I do. Every time I bake. But the important thing is...I don't always change it. Sometimes...it really just has to be that way.

Here are my personal rules about when to healthify and when to serve up the "good stuff:"

Healthify when...
1. Cooking for immediate family.
2. You've made that recipe a billion times and you know it inside and out.
3. No one will know who made what at the potluck anyways...what if you can get a little whole grain into 'em?
4. Making crumbles or cobblers. Normally the streusel can have a lot less sugar and butter.
5. Everyone knows you're a dietitian and thinks that whatever you make has zero calories.
6. You tell your husband what you are making ahead of time and he gets excited.

Don't healthify when...
1. You're making a really complicated recipe.
2. Birthdays and holidays.
3. Your husband will be telling everyone what you made.
4. You're having a bad day and a ruined recipe will push you over the edge.
5. You're cooking with friends and good intentions could turn into accidental addition of double instead of half the butter.
6. You tell your husband what you are making ahead of time and he gets excited.

Now this particular recipe I did not healthify, because my source had already done the work for me. Here it is...the perfect way to use up those last few apples if you got a bag of seconds from the orchard.

Apple Cake
adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Teenage Gourmet

6 apples
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar

2.75 cups flour, sifted
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1.5 cups sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
2.5 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
1 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a tube pan. Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. (I cut the top and bottom off, peeled the rest, used an apple corer/slicer, then used a knife to chop.) Toss with cinnamon and sugar. Set aside.

Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a different bowl, whisk together oil, applesauce, OJ, sugar, and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into dry, then add eggs one at a time.

Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan. Pour half of the apples over it. Pour remaining batter over the apples and arrnage remaining apples on top. Bake for about 1.5 hours (mine was almost overdone at 80 min...good thing I caught it in time) until tester comes out clean.

Sorry again for the iphone photos...

As for those stuffed jalapenos, I can't find the recipe I used anywhere. But I can tell you that they were stuffed with 1/3 less fat cream cheese, cheddar cheese, bacon, a little cayenne and then grilled. Hope that helps!