Apple Cake with Rum Sauce

Another yummy recipe from those old newspapers I'm fond of perusing. Submitted by a Mrs. Harold Woods, it was published on February 2, 1967 in The Emporia Gazette in Nell Hill Amburn's Cooking Corner, a column she wrote for several years.

Those familiar with the history of American newspapers know the Gazette as the small-town paper edited for many years by William Allen White, for whom the University of Kansas School of Journalism is named. Or learned it from watching the movie "Mary White", about the tragic death of his beloved teenage daughter.

Mrs. Woods called this recipe a "pudding", but I can attest it's more cake than pudding. The rum-flavored sauce is also a wonderful topping for cinnamon ice cream.

Apple "Pudding" with Rum Sauce

1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter (one stick + half of another)
2 eggs
4 cups apples, peeled and diced
1 cup walnuts or pecans OR 1 cup raisins
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Cream butter and sugar, Add all other ingredients. Grease a 9 x 13 inch pan on bottom only. Bake at 350 degrees around 45 minutes. [Note: the toothpick test will not be an accurate gauge of doneness.] Serve with the following:

Rum Sauce

3/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 cup boiling water
4 Tbsp (one stick) butter
1 Tbsp rum flavoring

Combine all ingredients except flavoring in saucepan. Cook, stirring occasionally, on medium heat until thick. Remove from heat; add flavoring. Serve either hot or cold.

Enjoy!!