Applesauce Cake – October What’s Baking

Fall is my absolute favourite season of the year, I love the crisp sunny mornings, and don’t get me started on the colors.  They are probably my favourite part.

CH and I spent Thanksgiving (Canadian!) in Toronto this year, without our family, which was an adjustment – no big family get together, no turkey dinner.  Having been back to Vancouver a few times in August, we just couldn’t justify going back again.  So we made the best of it and had a great weekend just the two of us (which doesn’t happen a lot these days!), cooked a fabulous meal  (that wasn’t turkey – CH described it as a lambstravaganza!) and enjoyed with some good friends.

We decided to spend Thanksgiving Sunday out of the city, and it turned out to be one of the best days for weather – it was almost 30 degrees, in October, in ONTARIO.  Needless to say, we we thrilled to be outside.  We started out the day picking out our pumpkins, which is an annual tradition.  We choose smaller ones this year, and one fun species called “Knucklehead” – he is my favourite.

We also decided to go to an apple orchard – to pick apples.  It’s something neither of us had done before, but we guarantee we will do it again.  It was so nice to walk through the orchard, CH climbing trees and tossing apples down to me, and me directing him to get “that specific apple”.  Before we knew it, we had ~ 15lbs of apples, and I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with them all…

However, just a few days later this recipe popped up in my Google reader, and I knew I had to make it.  The combination of spices, not to mention Tennessee Sugar’s pictures, sold me right away.  I was also excited by this recipe because I decided to make my applesauce from scratch (recipe posted soon!) – but it isn’t required, you can use your favourite canned applesauce.

We gobbled this up in mere days, first having it as dessert with ice-cream and caramel sauce, and then bringing it to work for breakfast.  It was absolutely delicious, and I can’t say more except for make it, soon.  It is also my submission to What’s Baking this month – as the theme was Fall Flavours.

Enjoy (and stay tuned for my applesauce recipe, and other apple treats soon!)

Applesauce Cake

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 and 3/4 cups sugar
• 5 large eggs
• 1.5 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 TBSP lemon juice
• 3 cups flour
• 1.5 tsp baking soda
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 2 cups applesauce (I used homemade unsweetened)
• Powdered sugar for dusting

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a bunt pan with non-stick spray.

In your stand-mixer, or hand-mixer, cream butter until light and creamy. Add in the sugar, and mix well.

Add the eggs to the butter mixture, one at a time, scraping the bowl occasionally until they are all incorporated.

Stir in the vanilla and lemon juice.

In a separate bowl mix together all of the dry ingredients and spices.

Add the dry mixture and applesauce, 1/2 a cup at a time to the butter/egg mixture, on low speed. Basically, you alternate adding the applesauce and flour, mixing on low speed, until well incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared bunt pan. Ensure that it is evenly distributed, and give it a tap on the counter a few times to release the air bubbles.

Bake for about an hour – testing at 45 minutes by sticking a toothpick in and having it come out clean.

Let the cake cool completely in the pan before trying to remove it.

Place the cake on a serving platter, and dust with powdered sugar.

Serve with ice-cream, whip cream, or as above with powdered sugar!

TIP: I served my cake warm for dessert at a dinner party.  Once the oven was turned off for cooking, I placed the cake in the oven for 20 minutes, just to warm-it through. Definitely added to it, but it was also very good at room temperature.

ENJOY!!

Recipe Adapted Slightly From Tennessee Sugar