Food Friday: Slow Cooker Apple Pie Cake!

With the advent of slow cookers in the missionary apartments, and having just seen a recipe for slow cooker Apple Pie Cake, I had to try it to see if was worth giving to the missionaries for their recipe archive.

Since I had the same Crock Pot as the missionaries this was a no-brainer to try.  The original recipe is in the link above.  This is what I did:

Apple Pie Cake

5 apples-I used Jazz apples, peeled, cored, and sliced and placed them in the slow cooker ceramic bowl.

In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon.  Sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar over the apples and, WITH A WOODEN SPOON, stir well to coat all the apple pieces with cinnamon sugar.

In a medium or larger bowl, place one box of dried cake mix. I used Betty Crocker Yellow Cake Mix.  Melt 1/2 cup butter and stir into the cake mix, making it a nice crumble texture.  You will probably need to use your hands, but be prepared...it sticks to  your hands.

Pour half of the crumble mix over the apples and stir in gently with the wooden spoon.  Arrange the apple mixture in an even layer then spread the remaining cake mix and butter mixture over the top more or less evenly. 

Set the timer to 2 1/2 hours on low.  At the end of the time, pierce some apples to see if they are ready to eat.  Mine were not so I put it cooking another hour. It did not take a full extra hour.

REMEMBER:  don't lift the crock pot cover after you set it timing or you will be adding to the cooking time.

Things I will do differently next time:
1.  I will increase the cinnamon to 1 teaspoon in the apples.
2.  I will also add cinnamon to the cake mix itself.  You cannot get too much cinnamon.  Just cooking fills your head with that wonderful aroma and is good enough.  You don't even need to eat the pie cake to get the benefit of that cinnamon.
3.  I will use softened butter instead of melted butter to see if I can made a more crumbly cake mix mixture rather than a globby cake mix mixture.
4.  I will probably try a different apple.  These Jazz apples were pretty sweet. I much prefer tart apples, or at least on the more tart end of the spectrum.