The arrival of autumn brings the anticipation of cool crisp days and nights, caramel apples, fires in the fireplace, and landscapes magically transformed with various shades of yellow, orange and red. Next to the bright yellow aspens set against the deep blue Colorado sky, the vivid colors of the trees out east are some of the most 'enough to take your breath away, make you want to cry' stunningly beautiful I have ever seen. The most memorable of all fall east coast landscapes experienced were in the Berkshires and the Hudson Valley last year, both places that would be worth enduring the harsh, cold, snowy winters just to be able to take in the best of what autumn brings.
There are two things I don't think I will ever tire of: photographing autumn landscapes and making apple desserts. From apple crisps, to apple pies, to apple cake, to baked apples, and now to this applesauce spice cake, the days of cooler temperatures, no humidity and an abundance of apples cannot get here soon enough.
I have been looking for a spice cake recipe for quite some time now, never quite finding one that 'spoke' to me. But then I came across the applesauce spice cake recipe and before even tasting it, I somehow knew my search was finally and thankfully over. A simple cake made with unsweetened applesauce, flavored with cinnamon, ginger and cloves, and topped with a cinnamon cream cheese frosting was akin to finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I was trying to wait for a slightly cooler day to make this cake, but my impatience got the best of me (it usually does). The applesauce spice cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting turned out to be falling into the 'life is too short to wait' category.
Toasted walnuts may be optional for some, but are generally a non-negotiable ingredient for me. Not only do they add some texture and crunch, they add an incredible depth of flavor as well as bring out their delicious oils. In a preheated 350 degree oven, walnuts are transformed after 10 to 12 minutes. Whatever you do, don't think of toasting nuts as an extra step, think of it as an absolutely necessary one.
Whenever a recipe calls for a nine inch round or square pan, I immediately think 'springform' pan. Besides being much easier to remove and serve, an unmolded cake on a platter or cake stand seems to increase its' deliciousness factor tenfold.
Baked only for 40 to 45 minutes, the applesauce spice cake ends up being perfectly moist. Waiting for it to cool before it is can be frosted will only seem like an eternity.
Another confession. I have never worked with marzipan before. My hypotheses of 'it is 'too' difficult and 'sort of' unnecessary' turned out to proven wrong. Once I figured out how to remove the marzipan from the antique cutter that is. Had I not started out making something simple with marzipan, I may have found the necessary proof that I was actually right all along (sometimes it is good to be wrong about something). If there was ever a reason to remember how to create varying colors from our elementary school art classes, this would be one of them. My marzipan leaves didn't exactly come out 'perfect' (or I should say look like they were made by either Martha Stewart or someone with years of marzipan experience), but I rather liked how 'rustic and authentic' they looked (sometimes imperfection can be better than perfection).
The cream cheese frosting has a slight hint of cinnamon flavor. Initially I thought the addition of cinnamon was unnecessary. Let's just say I thought wrong and we will leave it at that.
The amount of frosting on this cake is just right.
Although I am not one to commit recipes to memory (too many other things I would rather remember), I have a feeling I will be making this applesauce spice cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting so often it will become one of those recipes I could make in my sleep. This is one of those cakes made for welcoming in and celebrating the fall. Dense, moist, and just the right amount of spice, it may just be the perfect spice cake.
Already I am trying to figure out how to 'bring' this cake with me when I travel out east. The list of things I want to bring on this trip not surprisingly seems to be getting longer too. Oh well, traveling is an adventure.
Applesauce Spice Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting (slight adaptation to Spice Applesauce Cake shared in Gourmet, 2009)
Ingredients
Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon Saigon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped (optional but highly recommended)
Frosting
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups confectionary sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon Saigon cinnamon
Optional
Marzipan leaves
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 inch springform pan with parchment paper, set aside.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Set aside.
3. In a standing mixer fitted with a paddle blade, beat butter, brown sugar and vanilla until pale and fluffy (approximately 2-3 minutes).
4. Add eggs in one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. Beat in applesauce and vanilla.
6. At low speed, gradually mix in flour mixture until fully incorporated.
7. Stir in nuts.
8. Scrape batter into prepared springform pan and bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until pick inserted in center of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool 15 minutes, run knife around edge of pan to loosen cake, and transfer to plate or platter. Bring cake to room temperature before frosting.
9. For frosting, beat butter and cream cheese in a standing mixer fitted with a paddle blade until smooth. Mix in vanilla and cinnamon. Slowly add sifted confectionary sugar and continue beating until fully incorporated. (Note: This is enough frosting for the top and sides of cake.)
10. Optional: Decorate top of frosted cake with colored marzipan leaves.
Note: Store any leftover cake in the refrigerator.
Just minutes into the first day of September one of my friends, who also happened to be my doctoral dissertation chair, posted the following on her Facebook page: rabbit, rabbit. My first thought was 'what?'. While she just recently moved into a new home in Colorado, she couldn't possibly be seeing rabbits running around in the dark, or could she? Well maybe she could, but knowing her, there was something meaningful intended by these two words. But what was it? Thank goodness for search engines and the internet as I pretty sure I discovered why she posted those two words, words that take on significance when spoken on the first day of the new month. Or at least there is a pretty powerful superstition associated with them.
If 'rabbit, rabbit' are the first words uttered on the first day of the month, they are thought to bring you (good) luck all month long. They are, in fact, supposed to be the harbinger of good fortune. Rabbits have long been associated with luck of one sort or another (but usually good luck) for more than 2,000 years. But the widespread superstitiousness surrounding rabbits (like a rabbit's foot) emerged sometime in the early 1900s. Not only did President Franklin Delano Roosevelt carry a rabbit's foot, his first spoken words on the first day of the first month were 'rabbit, rabbit'.
If there is any truth around the expression 'an apple a day keeps the doctor away', who knows, there might even be truth around the 'rabbit, rabbit' as the first words spoken on the first day of every month superstition.
