MangiaMore: APPLESAUCE cake

RER 10.6.14

And it happened again. Sometimes I can't help it. I find myself scrolling endlessly through pretty baking blogs and the Martha Stewart website drooling after the delicious baked goods and beautiful layer cakes. A variety of flavors and shapes, sizes and textures, levels of difficulty and technique. There are fluffy cakes with egg whites folded in, or dense bread like cakes studded with nuts. That's nothing. There's buttercreams in a rainbow of colors; cooked frostings, boiling on the stovetop; and glazes, sweet and dripping.

RER 10.5.14

RER 10.5.14

RER 10.6.14

RER 10.5.14

And then it happens. I haaaave to make something. This time I desperately needed to make a layer cake. Despite searching the World Wide Web, I found the cake recipe in our tattered Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook (1996). The Applesauce Cake was easy enough to be fun and it wasn't laden with butter like some of my favorite bookmarked cakes (I will come to those more buttery, more difficult cakes later...Cupcake Wars). But as usual, we had to adjust, just a tad, subbing pumpkin pie spice for our own measured mix of spices.

This cake is practically a one-bowl wonder. It gets texture from applesauce and its fall feeling from the warm mix of spices. In our book, Betty recommends either a cream cheese frosting or a maple buttercream. Embracing the cooler weather and the crisper air we opted for the delicious maple frosting.

RER 10.6.14

RER 10.5.14

Applesauce Cake

adapted from Betty Crocker's New Cookbook

2 ½ C all purpose flour

1 ½ C unsweetened applesauce

1 ¼ C sugar

½ C water

1 ½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon salt

¾ teaspoon baking powder

2 eggs

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour bottom and sides of pan.

Beat all ingredients in a large bowl with mixture on low scraping constantly. Then beat on high for three minutes and scrape occasionally.

Bake in rectangle pan for 45-50 minutes or two 8 inch round pans for 40-45 minutes.

Cool and frost with Maple Buttercream or your favorite frosting!

Maple Buttercream

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup of butter

½ cup maple syrup

Mix powdered sugar and butter in a medium bowl.

Stir in maple syrup.

Beat until smooth and to preferred consistency. Add more syrup or powdered sugar if necessary to achieve spreadable texture.

RER 10.6.14

AJR 10.5.14

RER 10.5.14

The cake was spicy sweet dense and redolent of fall evenings and cozy moments. Each note of subtle heat brought comfort and struck a strong chord with the sweet earthiness of the maple in the buttercream. It was moist and spongy, and kinda great. Can’t wait for my next slice.

RER

10.5.14

RER 10.6.14

MangiaMore: WORMHOLE cupcakes

RER 11.1.13

First up, contender numeroooo unoooo in the 2013 Annual Halloween Cupcake Wars, the WORMHOOOOLLLEEEE (wormhole, for short) cupcake featuring a deliciously moist apple cinnamon cake and a mature* maple syrup buttercream frosting, topped with mildly creepy gummy worms.

RER 10.30.13

RER 11.1.13

*note: I used “mature” as the qualifier because I used the real stuff, not Mrs. Butterworths or Aunt Jemima, the syrups of my youth. The grown up stuff. I also used “mature” because I am not entirely fond of the flavor of legit maple syrup, however, the buttercream was the bomb.com.

RER 10.30.13

RER 10.30.13

RER 10.30.13

This spiced apple cupcakes recipe from chow.com was easy and scrumptious (shredding the apples was probably the most labor intensive part, and waiting for them to be cooked was the most challenging). The maple buttercream frosting, however, was more of the issue. It just would not stop separating, so refrigeration was the solution, even though there are other options out there (i.e. melting a little bit of the frosting in the microwave and then pouring it back into the bowl, or scrapping it and starting over).

RER 11.1.13

RER 10.30.13

In the end, these are (Believe it or not there are some left, warranting the present tense, but in the freezer to prevent that nasty thing called instant gratification. Patience is a virtue and waiting deserves a reward, a cupcake, obviously.) some mighty tasty cupcakes, verging toward the moist muffin territory. The apple, cinnamon, and maple flavors scream fall, and feel like being wrapped in a furry blanket on a damp cold day. I opted out of the ginger, and went light on the cinnamon, because I really wanted the pretty red gala apples to be the stars of these autumnal cupcakes. Shredded apples made for a fun play of texture, creating a barely there confetti of fruit floating through the dense warm batter. Despite the maple frosting being not so visually pleasing, the taste of the syrup was initially quite strong for the cupcake, but subsided with each bite (all three of them), blending with the cool weather favorite flavors.

RER 10.30.13

RER 10.30.13

The gummy worm, however, was superfluous (but important in my naming them… wormhole, get it?). Stay tuned for more Cupcake War adventures (in the mean time check out goodies on instagram, facebook and twitter)! 

PS. I would like to shout out my superstar sister, who helped with the cupcake battle, by helping me come up with ideas, cheering me on, shouting out baking directions, and messing with messy maple frosting! Thanks sis!

RER

10.31.13

RER 11.1.13