Apple Spice Cake with Salted Caramel Frosting

 

 

 

When I was little, my mother used to take me and my brother to a mercantile shop situated in what looked like a giant old barn. The only things I can remember them selling were fancy sliced soaps and local fruits and vegetables, but I know there had to be other things for sale in the shop because, as an adult looking back at that selection, it seems kind of weird. I always spent a good 5 minutes straightaway smelling all the soap slices and admiring their intricate patterns. Then I’d eventually meander around the store until my mom beckoned us to the cafe counter, which I would eagerly scurry over to with the hope that I’d get a little something from the high-up countertop. In the fall and winter they would sell piping hot homemade apple cider, and year-round they had sliced apples with a little cup of caramel dip, and that’s what we always got. As a child with wiggling loose teeth, I appreciated that they sold them sliced rather than whole because it was easier to bite into. And it also meant I could usually fanangle an obscene amount of caramel onto each slice (much more than a regular caramel apple would have allotted.)

 

My love for the simplicity of apples and caramel has continued since that point, and flourished into an appreciation of variations on that same flavor combination, which resulted in me making this ridiculously tasty caramel-apple themed cake. I incorporated a salted caramel glaze into the whipped and fluffy frosting, and used apple sauce and spices to give the cake that warm and cozy apple flavor. The result was a cake unlike any I’d had before. The salted caramel flavor of the frosting didn’t kick in until about a second after the first bite, which made for a nice surprise and really pleasant aftertaste. And the texture of the frosting was just wonderful, light and smooth and airy and everything that a frosting should be. This was my first time making a frosting with the flour-milk technique, and at first I was skeptical that it would end up as a fluffy frosting when it looked like Elmer’s glue in the saucepan, but it totally worked! And even though there were more steps to it than a regular old butter and powdered sugar frosting, I found the lighter texture of this frosting style a lot easier to work with when it came to frosting the cake (i.e. I had zero cake crumbs come out into the frosting while I was spreading it on the cake, which was awesome.)

 

 

As for the cake, it was realllly moist (I know a lot of people hate that word, but there’s no other way to describe it! Hydrated just sounds wrong when describing the moisture of a cake.) and it had the most beautiful apple-y smell. I could have sworn from the scent that I’d made an apple pie rather than a cake! But alas there was a large cake sitting in front of me, and so I helped myself to several pieces while making a mental note to bake some apple pie soon. I ended up making a lot of baked goods that weekend and invited my friend Ryan over to help me and Jeremy eat some of them, and this cake was his favorite of them all, so it has been friend-taste-tested and APPROVED. Also! A week ago I held a giveaway with King Arthur Flour for a St. Paddy’s Day cupcake decorating set, and today I am announcing the winner! Barrrrrummmmbumbumbumbumbumbummmmm……