Apple Coffee Cake

My very obviously undercooked, second attempt at coffeecake.

Okay, admittedly this didn't start off as my recipe. It was snagged from Simply Recipes ages ago, but it needed to be fixed as soon as I tried it.
In my kitchen, there are lots of foods that are bought with enthusiasm and then go unloved and bad. Things like celery. Or lettuce. Or, in this case, apples. I do love apples, but there are only so many I can handle in a given time period. I've had my eye on those apples for a while, trying to figure out how to get rid of them. So, I chose to make something I had all the ingredients for (well, duh Caitlin). Apple coffeecake.
For starters, this was dead simple. Ever make pancakes? It's about that hard. Yeah. Simple.
I've technically made this twice, the first time I sort of followed the recipe. Proportions and everything were correct, but I'm terrible at following directions and missed something somewhere. It ended up okay, but it didn't feel like there was enough batter for the bottom and the top. It came out of the oven as this golden brown thing on the sides, but my cinnamon on top had gotten moist and dark brown. Icky looking.
So the peanut gallery (my brother and company) is there talking about how it looks like someone sh*t on it, cutting himself a slice, starting in on how ugly it is. Then he tastes it. He immediately stops and says "Oh my god." Insults ended there. Furthermore, he goes on to inhale at its gloriousness, and inhales some sugar and cinnamon, causing him to choke. Revenge of the coffeecake!
Anyway, the coffeecake very quickly disappeared into the mouths of two teenage boys, so I felt the need to make another one. I decided that this time, I'd double the amount of batter (using the same 9" pan with a carefully placed cookie sheet). The result was a fluffy, moist, slightly-undercooked (but not in an unpleasant way, and mostly in the middle) square of deliciousness.

Apple Coffee Cake
Modified from Simply Recipes by Caitlin
Should serve about 9, but we're all greedy here.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt (I didn't change this from the original recipe, I don't like salted baked goods)
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
11 tbsp. butter, room temperature
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
2-3 medium sized baking apples, peeled, cored, and sliced*

*I cheated and used Macintosh apples. They're so much yummier than the Granny Smiths that were sitting in the pantry and turning yellow.

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease a 9" square baking dish or a pie pan of equalish volume.
2. Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. This is where Simply Recipes should've told me to set this aside and where I screwed up, I think.
3. In a separate small bowl (Oh, there it is.), mix 1/2 cup of sugar with cinnamon and set it aside. (No, I guess that wasn't it then...)
4. Beat butter with the remain sugar (Right, that's it). Beat in the eggs until blended. Add flour in THREE additions, alternating with milk, beating after each addition until combined. That's where I messed up, obviously, but it doesn't seem like it mattered a whole lot.
5. Pour half the batter into the bottom of the greased pan. You'll have to spread it out to make it fit, and you'll undoubtedly worry that you'll have too little or too much. Fear not, it's not so important as it seems.
6. Layer apples (coated in two thirds the cinnamony sugar mix) over your batter, fearlessly layering if necessary. We're aiming for one layer, but really, aren't apples delicious?
7. Pour over the remaining batter, which will also need to be spread. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamony sugar and stare in awe for 45 seconds at its beauty before you realize it's not ready to eat.
8. Bake in oven for 25-35 minutes (I recommend about 30-35 minutes, since this is kind of thick), or until golden brown and apples start to bubble at the edges.

In the future, I would not be opposed to having multiple, thicker layers of apple. The apple can easily go unnoticed in this dish (both ways that I made it), and I feel deserves a larger role. Regardless of the apple content, this dish isn't going to last more than a few hours in any house that has more than two people, so don't ask me how long it'll keep.
It's also worth noting that the cake itself is unspiced, which I found to be mildly upsetting. In the future, perhaps I'll see about spicing the cake. Spiced coffeecake sound good to anyone else?