Let's end the year with cake!
I love it when cake and fate come together.
Back in October, I tried a recipe in
The Little Big Book of Comfort Food(this is such a cute book) for a 9"x13" pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting. The name of the recipe was actually pumpkin bars, but it seemed like cake to me. It tasted good, but it wasn't fabulous, and I was pretty sure the reason was the lack of any butter or oil in the batter (it had a cup of applesauce instead).
A few weeks later I came across two forgotten cans of organic pumpkin in the pantry and thought about making the cake again, this time with some butter, but decided not to. About an hour later I found myself at
Beauty that Moves, where Heather was raving over her friend Cathleen's incredible pumpkin cake with orange cream cheese frosting, and tauntingme with a mouthwatering photo. I had all the ingredients, including the orange. (Dashing out to the grocery store for one or two ingredients isn't something I do these days since it requires an 80 mile drive). Like I said, cake and fate.
turned out to be nearly identical to the one in I'd tried, only hers called for a cup of canola oil instead of the applesauce. I split the difference, using half a cup of melted butter and half a cup of applesauce. Perfect! This is an easy to mix up, moist and flavorful cake that stays fresh in the fridge for days. And the orange cream cheese frosting is amazing.
In lieu of baking myself a birthday cake a few years ago, I made several different brownie recipes instead. I played around with frostings, too, including chocolate cream cheese. Since I was combining two of my favorites—cream cheese and chocolate buttercream—I figured this would be the frosting to end all frostings. Instead I thought it was a little weird. But orange cream cheese frosting? Not that is the cat's meow.
You can make this cake with applesauce from a jar, but homemade applesauce tastes miles above anything store bought, is a great healthy snack (orbaby food!)to have around, and is ridiculously easy to make. It's an idealway to use up apples that are past their prime, and iteven freezes well.
To make homemade applesauce, you simply peel, core, and chop some of your favorite apples into chunks (or combine two or three varieties), toss them in a covered pot with a splash of water or apple juice, let them simmer until very soft (about 25 to 40 minutes), and then mash them up with a potato masher.
If you like your applesauce smooth, you can put it in the food processor. My
big 12-cup KitchenAid processorhas a dandy little 4-cup mini bowl that works perfectly for puréeing things like dips and small batches of applesauce. I cooked up some Jonathan apples recently, and the processed sauce came out so creamy I couldn't believe it.
If you have a food mill (I love my new
Oxo Good Gripsfood mill—thanks to all of you who encouraged me to buy one!), you can just cut whole apples (skins, cores, and all) into large chunks, cook as above, and then put the entire contents of the pot through the food mill. The amount of applesauce you end up with depends on theapples andthe methodyou use, but on average, I've found that one pound of apples makes roughly one cup of applesauce. Unfortunately apples are #1 on the Environmental Working Group's
, so organic apples are the way to go. As always, I urge you to seek out local and organic ingredients; they really do make a difference. Organic flour bakes up beautifully, and
is reasonably priced and easy to find. Even
organic sugaris becoming mainstream. I stock up on organic butter when it goes on sale and freeze it. Look for farm fresh eggs at the farmers' market; you won't believe how
. An easy way to find local food for sale in your area is to search on
LocalHarvest.org.
Good baking equipment is an affordable investment that will last for years and makes time spent in the kitchen much more enjoyable. I bought myself a
9"x13" Chicago Metallic commercial baking panas an early Christmas present, and it's just as wonderful as the
Chicago Metallic commercial loaf pansI've been using and raving about for years. You can read about some of my other favorite kitchen essentials—most are under $25—
here.
Old-Fashioned Pumpkin Spice Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes one 9"x13" cake
** Click here to print this recipe **
This is my favorite kind of cake: comforting and homey, easy to make. I'm a real 9"x13" cake kind of girl. It's perfect as an after school snack or at tea time, but it's nice enough to serve at a dinner party or Sunday buffet. I like it for breakfast with a tall glass of ice cold milk. You should store your cake in the refrigerator because of the cream cheese frosting, but it tastes best when served at room temperature.
4 large eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick/4 ounces) organic butter, melted
1/2 cup unsweetened organic applesauce
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups organic all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder (make sure it's fresh!)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
Heat the oven to 350°. Grease a 9"x13" baking pan.
In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, sugar, melted butter, applesauce, pumpkin, and vanilla with a hand held electric mixer on medium speed until smooth.
Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves; mix on low speed until smooth.
Spread the batter into the greased pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, about 30 to 40 minutes. Make the frosting while the cake bakes (recipe below).
Let the cake cool completely before spreading on the frosting. Sometimes I hurry along this process by sticking the warm cake pan and the wire cooling rack in the freezer for 30 minutes. This cake will keep for several days in the refrigerator and can also be frozen. It tastes best served at room temperature.
Orange Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes enough to generously frost one 9"x13" cake
I love the subtle hint of orange in this frosting, which becomes more pronounced the next day, but you can up the orange flavor by adding extra orange zest. Heather also uses orange juice concentrate instead of orange juice in
her version. If you like a thicker frosting, simply add a little more powdered sugar.
8 ounces organic cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (1 stick/4 ounces) organic butter, softened
3 Tablespoons organic orange juice
2 teaspoons finely chopped or grated organic orange zest
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted (measure before sifting)
In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter with a hand held electric mixer on medium high speed until combined. Mix in the orange juice, orange zest, and vanilla. Add the powdered sugar and beat until smooth, adding more powdered sugar if desired.
More pumpkincakes from other food bloggers:
from Pinch My Salt
from Gluten-Free Goddess
from For the Love of Cooking
from The Recipe Girl
from Under the High Chair
More Farmgirl Fare sweet treats:
Quick Emergency Chocolate Cake
Chocolate Babycakes
Easy Orange Yogurt Loaf Cake
Easy Autumn Pear and Apple Crisp
Easy Old-Fashioned Blackberry Crisp
Hungry for more than dessert? You'll find links to all my sweet and savory Less Fuss, More Flavor recipes in the Farmgirl Fare Recipe Index.
©
FarmgirlFare.com, the frosted foodie farm blog where we love our
homegrown vegetables, but there's always room for cake.
