This was my mother's recipe. It was eaten and loved by our family for generations and generations.
If you make it I'm sure it will become a favorite of your family too. The Kentucky apple stack recipe is a long standing tradtion in the mountains of my youth. Originally it was used as a wedding cake in pioneer days. Each member of the wedding party brought a disc of sweet bread and they were all stacked together between layers of spiced apples. The taller the cake the more popular the bride and groom.

My Mother's Apple Stack Cake  

2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 t baking soda
3 t (2?) baking powder (this was g’mom’s notation)
6 cups flour
1 t salt
1 t vanilla
1 c. shortening (Parkay margarine) or 1/2 cup of Parkay and 1/2 cup of Crisco.
1/2 c. buttermilk
 The above combination of ingredients should be divided into 8 balls of equal weight and
chill in the fridge for at least 1/2 hour.

The ingredients below are for the filling that goes between the layers. 
(It’s kind of like a tall stack of sweet bread discs – with spiced
apple filling in between).

Filling my mom's hard way*:
cook down 1 pound dried apples in to sauce. Make sure you stir them well so they don't burn and be judicious with water, add only as needed to make the texture and thickness right.

Spicing my Mom's way*:
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. white sugar
2 t cinnamon
1/2 tsp of cloves
1 t allspice
Use about 3/4 c. apple mixture between each layer
MY QUICK EASY APPLE FILLING AND SPICING
*Those of us who have no dignity or pride of workmanship can use applesauce instead of the dried apples.  Whatever you do don't completely cave in and buy apple butter. First, you can make it better, the texture is not right and it's WAY too expensive. Even a caveman can do the easy apple sauce and spicing as follows:
Just get two large jars of unsweetened applesauce in the store, place contents in a two-quart pan, heat and add the spices as follows: 
**1 cup of sugar, 3/4 cup of dark brown sugar, 2-3+ tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice, 1 tsp of salt, and 1/2-1 tsp of cloves. I prefer using 1 tsp of cloves, but that’s up to you. Cloves make it special but it's powerful. Cloves can take over the flavor ensemble, like a drummer that plays too loud. You don't want that, so respect its' culinary Authoritai!!!
Make sure you cook the apples until they are about the thickness of apple butter, but not quite.  If it is too watery the sweet bread will be too soggy and the appearance will be less than savory.  If too thick the bread discs will be too dry.  Trial and error, mostly error , will lead you to the cake that best pleases you.
NOW: If you have applesauce left over then you can give it to the kids....or to heck with the kids, just eat it yourself. Take the cut away parts of the disc dough, bake it, crumble it up in a small cup and pour the extra apple sauce over it. Quick and dirty, but really good. Or, if you have enough left over you may have enough for a 10 or 12 layer cake instead of 8.

Non-Mom instructions, but very important:

A few suggestions for a lovely looking as well as lovely tasting cake:
Preliminary Instruction (required):
Begin by fortifying yourself with sufficient amounts of good red wine and turn the TV up to the point the sound will cover up your shouting and yelling when this or that operation fails….for the third time. 

Have some more wine, and then:
1. Make sure you divide the balls of dough equally, so that they size and weigh the same.
2. Make sure the discs you roll out are the same thickness from center to edge.  If the center is thicker than the edges the cake will lose its flatness, the layers will begin to curve as they are stacked and finally they will bend and break. A very flat disc of uniform thickness helps avoid this tragic result. Discs should be about 1/4" after rolling, slightly more for an 8 inch pan. Thinner is actually a bit better for soaking the apple sauce.
3. Another thing that helps keep the layers flat and well supported is to make sure the applesauce is well distributed, with perhaps a touch more all around the edges than the center.  This too, will help eliminate radiusing and  the dreaded Cracking of the Discs (I speak from the heartbreak of experience here)–––it still tasted good though.

My mom recommended 9” or 10” cake pans, but 8 works fine too, it just increases baking time – coat the pans with equal amounts shortening and flour.  Nowadays you can use baker’s joy; that works great.  They need to bake at 350 degrees until they are golden brown (usually 10 to 12 minutes, but this depends upon your oven). The best advise is to check it at 9 minutes.

Cool them and begin the construction process as described above.

Finally, place the cake under lock and key for at least one day (two would be better, but we're only human).  The first day (12 hours) cover the cake and let it set at room temperature.
The second day, place it in the refrigerator under heavily armed guard.

The third day consume it, preferably alone.

The fourth day, wish you were dead.

On the fifth day, if you're Catholic like me, think about how you're going to approach this in confession.  Enjoy!