Apple Harvest Cake-Loaf

With all of the apples available lately, and at super cheap prices, I see a few apple posts in my future. I came across this recipe for Apple Harvest Cake, but adapted it to make sweet apple bread loaves. These are definitely a sweet treat, more like cake than bread, but they are easy to freeze this way. The apple cake is sweet enough to eat on its own, but you can also choose to top it with the cream cheese icing (which is also delicious). I made 1.5 times the following recipe for 3 loaves, and froze one of them. I only made half of the cream cheese icing recipe, and just poured it over the two loaves I didn't freeze. I plan to take one into work, and well, the last one will get devoured at home.Apple Harvest Cake
adapted slightly from 30 Day Gourmet
makes 2 loaves, or 1 9x13 cake as written

For the cake:
2 eggs
2 c. sugar
1 c. applesauce
1/2 c. vegetable oil
3 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
3 c. chopped apples (I used granny smith, about 5 small apples)
1 c. chopped walnuts (optional, I omitted)

For the Cream Cheese Icing:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 c. confectioner's sugar
1/4 c. milk
2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Grease and flour pans; either 2 cake rounds, 1 9x13 cake pan, or 2 9x5 loaf pans.
2. Combine eggs, sugar, applesauce, and oil. Beat well. Add flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Mix until dry ingredients are moistened.
3. Stir in apples, and nuts if using.
4. Pour into prepared cake pans and bake 35-45 minutes (40-50 for loaf pans).
5. Cool cakes, and frost if desired.
6. For cream cheese icing, mix all ingredients. This icing will be kind of runny - decrease amount of milk to stiffen it up, or add more confectioner's sugar to reach desired consistency.REVIEW:
Very tasty. The only issue I have is that since the icing doesn't set up, its a little messy to eat. But really, it is intended to be eaten as a cake with a fork, so I think my issue is that I am trying to eat slices with my fingers ;) If you were going to serve this as a coffee cake, instead of the cream cheese icing you could just top it with a cinnamon-sugar mixture before baking.

To freeze, wrap the loaf in plastic wrap and stick in it a Ziploc Freezer bag.