October also means an entirely new season and style of cooking. Out are raw salads and grilled meats. In come long-simmering stews and cinnamon-spiked quick breads. Zucchini and tomatoes are making way for butternut squash and heavenly-when-cooked-correctly Brussels sprouts. And let’s not forget fall’s finest bounty: bag after bag of regional apples, purchased for a pittance. A pittance! Forsooth, I say!

I recently procured just such a sack of the medium-sized MacIntosh variety, which I find fairly solid for eating, saucing, and all-purpose baking. One by one, I turned them into snacks, applesauce, and Low-Fat Apple Coffee Cake from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. Which? Will make you drool on your culottes. It’s that good.

Words that describe this cake: warm, moist, sweet, light, fairly low-fat, apple-packed, crunch-esquey, cinnamonilicity, scrumptulescent.

Words that do not describe this cake: gross, stapler, Michael Vick.

Of course, if you should embark on this journey of delectable…ness, there are a few things to know:

1) You’re supposed to coat the baking pan with cooking spray. I ran out, but a thin swipe of Butter-flavored Crisco stood in nicely.

2) I substituted a real egg for egg substitute. Whoa. Meta.

3) As noted, I used MacIntoshes, but other baking apples may elicit even better results. So, experiment! (Except with Red Delicious. They’re pretty useless in cakes like this.)

Welcome, autumn. I could not be happier to eat, er, see you.