Applied Applesauce

Applesauce Spice Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

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The other night I was at a friend's house for dinner, when upon gathering my herd to leave after a most pleasant evening, my friend asked me,

"I made applesauce out of the apples from my tree and some of the jars didn't seal. You want some applesauce?"

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Disclaimer of improbable importance: Any time any one asks me if I want any type of comestible, there is probably going to be an answer of the affirmative kind.

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A short while later I found myself marching out her front door with two chilly quarts of fresh, homemade applesauce under each arm. My stride was a bit more peppy than normal, for not only had I spent the evening among some fantastic company and ingested some sublime grub, but there I was skipping to the car with eight cups of mashed apples!

On the way home, while singing loudly (it's for the children), I visualized what ingredients were lurking in my kitchen, for I was going to make an applesauce cake!

Here's what I came up with:

Applesauce Spice Cake

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 cup melted butter (or vegetable oil of your choice)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce
2 eggs

Add all dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine.

Add all wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix until well combined.

Bake in a greased 9X13 inch pan in a 350 degree oven until you can insert a toothpick in the middle and have it come out cleaner than bleached underwear. That was a 55 minute baking time in my oven.

As far as dressing up the cake in additional flavor bling, I rather thought that this bit of applesauce awesomeness tasted amazing without any frosting. This cake is like taking a trip to a spice festival for one's taste-buds. Seriously, I am reasonably sure that my tongue was doing some sort of belly dance maneuver. However, I have this problem, I like my children, and they like frosting. With that sentiment and knowledge coloring my mindset I took an 8 ounce package of cream cheese, a stick (1/2 cup) of butter, a dash of vanilla extract, a few tablespoons of milk, and about 3 cups of powdered sugar and placed them into my good ol Kitchen Aide mixer. I beat those few ingredients until they resembled a silken cloud of cream cheese frosting goodness. My son subsequently proclaimed that I was the "greatest mom in existence" as he ate a small city block sized piece of the cake. The frosting effort was totally worth it.

Before baking

Another nice feature of this recipe, aside from the way it made my house smell like a scented candle commercial, is that it is a one bowl recipe. I had more irons in the proverbial fire yesterday than there were cars in our town's new Popeye's restaurant drive thru line. I didn't have loads of time to devote to a multi-step cake and dirty dishes extravaganza yesterday afternoon, so I truly appreciated the simplicity and ease of this cake recipe's preparation.

After baking

This little applesauce sourced sweet diversion is also one of those baked goods that tastes even better on the second day! Some items of the baking realm taste best right after they emerge from an oven, or just the day of creation. However, there are baked goods like this amazing applesauce cake that develop a more moist and complexity of flavor as time on the planet elapses. Not that this second day enjoyment phenomenon happens often, for it is a kitchen miracle of sorts to get a piece of anything on the second day at our house, foodstuffs tend to evaporate like precipitation in the Gobi Desert. It's almost like:

"And on the second day empty baked good dishes were created, and it was almost good, had we gotten a piece....

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And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's very saucy iPhone.

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