[1] Servings … as a double layer. If you want to stretch it even further, consider leaving the cakes unstacked and serving them as two single layers. A one-eighth slice of a single layer is a small serving, but in no way paltry. The cake is filling enough to make that work for 16 total servings.
[2] Olive Oil: A good, everyday olive oil works beautifully. Save your extra virgin for salad dressing and bread dipping.
[3] Vanilla: I recommend my man-made, hand-made, ideologically-superior vanilla extract. You regular readers know how I feel about the that!
[4] Room Temperature: The butter and cream cheese will come to room temperature in about the same amount of time that it takes for the finished apple cakes to cool.
[5] Cold Butter: Don’t try to cream a stick of cold butter with a cheap hand-held mixer. Oh, and in case you’ve ever wondered how well a hand-held mixer would work with only one working beater, the answer is “like crap.”
[6] Syrup: You’re going to want to use real maple syrup for this cake, not Aunt Jemima. You can swap out as much as 2 Tbs of the syrup for reserved raisin liquid. You can usually find real maple syrup in tiny bottles (thankfully, because it’s so expensive). I found a 3.4 ounce bottle (you could fly with it) of Archer Farms, and that was perfect. Yes, that’s the Targé brand. Sorry, Aunt Jemima.
[7] Refrigeration: To keep it from drying out while in the refrigerator, I place the cake in a tightly-sealed cake tote, which I then place into the fridge.