My mothers southern kitchen

I finally got back to my original reading list and decided to cook something from My Mothers Southern Kitchen.
I don't really know what to say about this book, from the name I thought it would be more of a memoir than it was.
Most of the memories are confined to the front of each chapter like in an ordinary cookbook and they are more random than a properly laid out memoir in fact it's designed like a normal albeit very chatty cookbook.
The other thing I found was that a lot of the recipes just didn't take my fancy for a number of reasons, either I couldn't get some of the ingredients or they just didn't appeal to my palate (a jello salad anyone?)
Or the work that went into the recipes themselves seemed disproportionate to the finished product.
I think maybe I was suffering from culture shock, the book is obviously written by an American and nothing is taken into account for international readers.
You are given specific brands that are good to use (what's the nearest British equivalent to crisco?) and certain ingredients aren't explained, are Graham crackers like digestive biscuits? Is american ham processed in the same way as british? How do I know if it's a good piece for that particular recipe? and I still don't know what a bloody smore is?!
But in the end I found this recipe for apple cake and decided to make this, I also decided to make it into little buns to prevent the inevitable burning that would take place and I also decided to ice the cakes with a cinnamon icing. I ended up with forty of these buggers!



Very tasty but I really don't want to get fat by eating all of these on my own. So if you make these yourself do make sure that you have people to share them with.
I changed the recipe in so much as using cooking apples instead of eating apples as I still have some that need eating up.
The recipe also uses oil instead of butter in the batter, having never done it this way before I was quite nervous. The cakes come out ever so moist and not greasy at all. It's rather scary when you first add the oil though but it soon starts to look like cake batter as your stirring it.
I'm giving the recipe in cup measurement as I had he'll converting it into grams, I'm sorry if this is a bugger for you.
The icing recipe is in grams though, once again I'm sorry.

Fresh apple cake

Ingredients
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/12 cups vegetable oil
3 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
3 cups apple (I used 4 smallish cooking apples)
1 cup chopped walnuts

Method

Preheat oven to 350'f
In a large bowl mix together the sugar, eggs, vanilla and oil together until it starts comes together. At first it doesn't look like the oils going to mix in and looks like a slick but it does eventually come together.
Then sift in the flour, soda, spices and salt. Stir again and it should look like real cake batter.
Finally fold in the apple and walnuts, I forgot to say that as I was preparing the apples that I sprinkled them with lemon juice and sugar. The lemon juice to stop them going brown and the sugar because cooking apples aren't as sweet as eaters.
Then spoon the mixture into bun cakes and bake in the oven for 15 minuets or so. Allow them to cool and make the icing with.

110g unsalted butter
60ml milk
500g icing sugar
A pinch of cinnamon
Orange food colouring
Hundreds and thousands to sprinkle

Cream half the sugar with the rest of the ingredients until it starts to come together, then work in the rest of the sugar.
Ice your cakes and enjoy.