looked like it might be the thing.

I made the cake immediately and as my mother and I tasted it, we finally knew that we had found the one. Sometimes, the memory outshines the reality. But in this cake, it did not.

As I was testing recipes for the cookbook, I added my grandmother’s apple cake to 10 other cakes, some classic and some newfangled, for a neighborhood tasting the cookbook writer’s version of a “cake walk.” Everyone gravitated toward my grandmother’s cake.

I had to stop myself from adding a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of vanilla to the batter as I rarely make a cake without it, but I decided that I should preserve this cake just the way my grandmother made it. The batter is very stiff like cookie dough before you add the apples, but rest assured as soon as the apples give up their juice, the batter loosens and will bake beautifully.

• Elizabeth Karmel is a barbecue and Southern foods expert. She is the chef and pitmaster at online retailer CarolinaCueToGo.com and the author of three books, including “Taming the Flame.”