Our dishwasher died yesterday afternoon, right as I was in the middle of making Cinnamon Glazed Apple Cider Donut Cake.

It was a beautiful fall day and I couldn’t help but daydream about apple cider donuts. I wanted to pile everyone in the car and head down to the local cider mill instead of filling the sink with soapy water to scour the pots and pans from the previous night’s dinner while I waited for the dishwasher to finish its current load.

I don’t know who I was kidding: We couldn’t make a donut run anyway. EJ and I would have had to sip on hot apple cider and watch the three of you enjoy donuts while we sulked. Baking a cake-version at home seemed like an easy idea — until the dishwasher died.

When it happened, it wasn’t a surprise: We saw the signs it was dying for several weeks. I was mentally preparing for the day it would finally go kaput, but I didn’t imagine it would be on a day the sink would be overflowing with dishes leftover from dinner the previous night, plus messy batter bowls and cake pans. I spent the afternoon washing dishes by hand, thinking about how fitting it was that it finally slipped away in fall, because fall is when things die.

We don’t think about that very often, do we? Instead, when we think of fall, we think of the burnished trees that wave at us from our window. The striking color makes us catch our breath, and as we look, we linger, marveling over how glorious the firey leaves look. We cozy up in flannel shirts and traipse our way through the pumpkin patch, soaking in the sights and smells of autumn: nature’s last hurrah before winter weather snuffs out its glow.

Fall makes me think of loss, always, and this year the sting is a little bit stronger. There’s been a lot of loss in our community this year, and personally, we both lost grandmothers this year. Even though we knew those hard days would come didn’t make it any easier when they actually did.

I held Grandma Teague’s hand during the last weeks of her life. She couldn’t say much by then, and by the last time I sat with her, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I don’t know what she was sorry for exactly, but I know enough about my grandma that she didn’t like having folks fuss over her. She was small in stature, but fierce in spirit, and that woman served others until well after her body forced her to stop.

I squeezed her hand and smiled as tears slid quietly down my cheeks, telling her she had nothing to be sorry for, that it was ok to let herself really rest now. I reminded her of how when I was little, she would lay next to me and hold my hand while I fell asleep, reassuring me that I wasn’t alone. I was scared to be by myself in that dark room, but her hand reassured me I was safe. Now it was my turn to do the same for her.

I held her soft, now-gnarled hand, the one that raised kids and taught school and cooked meatballs and baked tea rings and folded laundry and gave the best hugs. The one I watched curl with age; the one I miss holding as we sit and chat about life and what my own kids are up to lately.

Oh, how I want to go visit her and bring her a slice of the Apple Cider Donut Cake I managed to make in the middle of yesterday’s mess and laugh with her about how the dishwasher went out right when I needed it most. “Isn’t that always the way?” she’d say. I would have laughed and agreed, then admit it ended up being a happy problem because Addie jumped in and dried clean dishes as I washed the dirty ones. She’s old enough to be a real help to me now, and I’ll always remember how even though those dishes took a whole lot longer to get cleaned up and put away than they would have if the dishwasher was working, Addie and I got to spend time together talking, just the two of us, and we talked about Grandma and how many dishes her hands washed over the years. I retold the story everyone knows by heart about how she and her sister sang while they scrubbed when they were young girls.

Addie and I didn’t sing as we scrubbed, but my heart was soothed knowing that even though things aren’t the way they “should” be (there’s death and disease, heartache and frustration), there’s a whole lot of good right here, right now. Someday these will be the days Addie tells her grandchildren about. Life keeps moving forward, come frustration, fear, disaster, and even death. The people left behind keep living, and that’s the way our loved ones would want it.

It wasn’t the same as going down to the cider mill and getting a fresh donut from the country store, but it was good just the same. We sliced it up and served it at our small group, and it was really, really good — exactly what I had been dreaming of. It was sweet, spicy and everything an apple cider donut should be.

We had dessert first last night, because it felt right. Grandma always said that was the proper way to eat it, so I’m sure she would have been proud of us. (I can almost hear her say, “Good girl.”)

Cinnamon Glazed Apple Cider Donut Bundt Cake

I based this recipe on my vegan, gluten free apple cider donut recipe, but adjusted it to make it work as a full-sized bundt cake. I panicked that it would fall apart, so I added an egg to this version, but I bet it would work beautifully with egg replacer (Bob’s Red Mill is still my favorite). You could even use regular all purpose flour instead of all purpose gluten free flour blend if you aren’t gluten free. But whatever you do, don’t skimp on the glaze. It takes the cake from good to great!

Wet Ingredients:

1 cup applesauce

3/4 cup spiced apple cider

1/2 cup neutral oil (use what you like best)

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Dry Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose gluten free flour blend (such as Namaste)

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the Glaze:

• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2-3 Tablespoons original, unsweetened non-dairy milk (or regular milk)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• dash of salt

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease and flour a bundt pan.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients.
3. Add the dry ingredients, then whisk until fully combined.
4. Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. The cake should spring back when gently touched as well.
5. Let the cake cool down on a wire rack for about 15 minutes, then invert it, removing it from the pan. Let it cool completely.
6. Make the glaze: Whisk together glaze ingredients until smooth. Start with 2 tablespoons and add another tablesppon if the glaze seems too thick. Pour over cooled cake. The glaze will set as it sits.