recipe: apple cake

i hadn't made anything appley this fall yet so figured carpe diem. i made the Pioneer Woman's Apple Cake in an Iron Skillet which uses a frightening amount of butter, but still sounded so good i had to try it. i made it exactly as written:

ingredients list:
- 4 whole granny smith apples, peeled, cored & cut into six equal pieces
- 1 & 3/4 sticks butter
- 3/4 cup sugar
***
- 1 stick butter, softened
- 2/3 cups sugar
- 1 & 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 & 1/2 cup flour
- 1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 whole granny smith apple, peeled, cored & finely chopped

to make:

preheat oven to 375 degrees. in a large cast iron skillet, melt 1 & 3/4 sticks butter over low heat. add 3/4 cup sugar skillet and stir until well blended, placing apple slices, wedge side down, in the pan in a circular formation (packed loosely - but not with overly large gaps). simmer on low/medium-low heat while prepping the cake batter.

in the bowl of an electric mixer, beat 1 stick of softened butter & 2/3 cup sugar. mix in vanilla and eggs. add sour cream & mix well. in a separate bowl, blend flour, salt, baking soda & cinnamon, then gradually add flour mixture to electric mixer batter until combined. gently stir in the 1 chopped apple.

turn off heat to skillet. spoon batter over the top of apples in skillet, spreading until it's covering the entire surface (as best as it can anyway). bake for 25 minutes, until cake is golden brown. allow cake to sit in skillet for five minutes, then (carefully) invert onto a serving plate.

this came out awesome. there was a lot of butter (when it was cooling there was still butter bubbling in pockets around the cake), but i don't know if i cut it back by 1/4 stick in the apple mixture if it would then stick to the pan too much when inverting. next time i'll probably try to replace some of the butter in the apple mixture with rum and let it reduce a bit before adding the apples, and replace half of the butter on the cake mix with applesauce and see how it goes. it tasted delish exactly the way it is (the sauce was carmelized and so yummy w/ the warm apple cake), it's just horrifying to use so much butter in one cake. i also used all white sugar for this go-round, tho next i'll definitely do brown sugar. right now i'm trying very hard not to eat anymore of it before i can pawn it off on people. yumz. 7 stars *******.

(it looks better in person than these godawful orangey-hued pics... still tastes good tho)