Apple Cake with an Attitude for #BundtaMonth

Before I get into this post, I just want to say thank you to Lora, AKA Cake Duchess for moving the posting date for this month’s BundtaMonth. As of this writing, I still have no power and so the only way I could work on it was during lunch at the office over several days. I didn’t ask her to move it, she generously offered. Lora, I hope one day we can meet in person so I can give you a hug!

UPDATE: Power was restored to my home last night (Tuesday 11/6). Now I have to hope the nor’easter that is hitting Long Island won’t zap us again. Fingers crossed!

 

Spice

That’s the challenge for this month’s #BundtaMonth. I immediately had cayenne on the brain. I have no idea why really but that was the first thing that popped into my head so I decided to run with it.

My husband and I went apple picking on our vacation so I thought it would make sense to bake an apple cake and so why not see what happens when you add a little cayenne.

What happens is something amazing!

You get the sweet from the apples right up front and the moistness of the cake and you think ahhh, comfort food. But there’s something else, something happening in the back of your throat but the first bite just leaves you wondering. You take another bite and then it hits you: This cake has a kick!

It remains somewhat subtle so no worries about a sudden need to dive into a glass of milk…although an ice tall glass of cold milk would be awesome with this cake…the cayenne just adds that little something that makes you think.

I must admit, my first attempt at baking this cake didn’t turn out quite as expected. I goofed when I calculated the amount of baking powder and baking soda I needed for the recipe so it didn’t rise as well as expected. The flavor was good but I just wasn’t happy with the density, so I rebaked.

Interested in joining the fun?

#BundtaMonth:
Anuradha and Lora will pick an ingredient and announce it the first week of every month. All you bundt loving bakers need to do is use your imagination on how you’d like to incorporate it and bake a bundt – mini bundt or large bundt – and link it up to their blogs throughout the month. It’s that simple!

Here’s how to you can join the #BundtaMonth party:
- Bake your Bundt for November following the theme – Spice.
- Post it before November 30, 2012.
- Use the #BundtaMonth hashtag in your title. (For ex: title should read – #BundtaMonth: Spice Bundt)
- Add your entry to the Linky Tool by clicking here or here.
- Link back to both Anuradha’s and Lora’s announcement posts.

Anuradha from Baker Street – Blueberry Cinnamon Bundt Cake

Lora from Cake Duchess – Gingerbread Apple Bundt Cake

Renee from Magnolia Days – Cinnamon Crown Bundt Cake

Kate from Food Babbles – Spiced Dark Chocolate with Cinnamon Glaze

Karen from In The Kitchen With KP – Italian Anise Bundt Cake

Jennie from The Messy Baker – Maple Pecan Bundt with Maple Glaze

Alice from Hip Foodie Mom – Mexican Chocolate Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze

Kim from Cravings of a Lunatic – Peach and Roasted Cinnamon Bundt Cake with Cinnamon Sugar

Laura from The Spiced Life – Moroccan Inspired Olive Oil Bundt Cake with Ras El Hanout

Stacy from Food Lust People Love – Gram’s Fig Spice Bundt Cake with Buttermilk Glaze

Deb from knitstamatic – Apple Bundt Cake with an Attitude

Carrie from Poet in the Pantry – Spicy Chocolate Bourbon Bundt Cake

Holly from A Bakers House – Ginger-Pear Bundt Cake

Dorothy from Shockingly Delicious – Nutmeg Bundt Cake

Paula from Vintage Kitchen – Cardamom Bundt Cake with Saffron

Apple Cake with an Attitude
Inspired by Apple Butterscotch Cake Cake Simple: Recipes for Bundt-Style Cakes from Classic Dark Chocolate to Luscious Lemon-Basil by Christie Matheson and Alex Farnum

Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon cayenne
¼ teaspoon ground ancho chili powder
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup canola (or other neutral oil)
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup packed light brown sugar
3 eggs
1-teaspoon vanilla extract
2-3 granny smith or other tart apples, peeled and shredded or grated
Confectioners sugar for dusting (optional)

Instructions
1. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
2. Grease and flour your Bundt pan, set aside.
3. Whisk the flour, cinnamon, cayenne, ancho chili, baking powder, baking soda and salt, set aside.
4. In your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the canola oil, apple sauce, granulated and light brown sugars on medium speed until thoroughly combined.
5. Add the eggs, one at a time, whisking after each addition.
6. Add the vanilla and whisk.
7. With the mixer on low, carefully add the flour mixture, a little at a time until combined.
8. Gently fold in the apples by hand.
9. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the lower third of your oven for about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Make sure to check it after an hour. If the top is browning too quickly you can lay a piece of aluminum foil on top.
10. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
11. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for about 15-20 minutes then carefully invert onto a rack to cool completely.
12. Dust with confectioner’s sugar if desired.

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Whole Wheat Challah for #TwelveBreads

My breaducation continues with Challah! I was so excited to see the July pick would be Shulie’s Honey Challah. I’ve actually made this before – straight up as written but this time I got adventurous and messed with the recipe a bit.

I cannot tell you how incredibly easy and satisfying it is to make this dough. No temperatures or yeast feeding to worry about here. If you’ve never made bread before this is a great place to start. The end result: heavenly.

Don’t be intimidated by the form, if you can braid hair or string you can braid dough. Really.

Since I’ve made this challah before and I knew what to expect, I felt comfortable experimenting with several aspects of the dough. First, I wanted to make a whole wheat challah so I swapped out half of the white flour for my new favorite flour, King Arthur Flour White Whole Wheat.

Just a bit of an aside about this flour, KAF white whole wheat is 100% whole wheat, it’s just milled from white spring wheat rather than red wheat used in traditional whole wheat flour. So what this means is the wheaty flavor is milder – a plus for my husband who doesn’t always like a strong wheat flavor in baked goods. I’ve used is in cookies, muffins and pie dough and all were delicious…and I can now say it is fantastic for bread as well.

Okay, so now back to the challah:

I also felt that because whole wheat flour is a bit heavier than all-purpose, I’d swap the latter for bread flour. Bread flour has a higher protein (gluten) percentage than all purpose, which translates to a higher rise, so I was betting that this modification would help to compensate.

All great so far, but I wanted MORE. I started thinking about what we like to do with leftover challah and one of our favorites is to make french toast…so I got to thinking (dangerous, I know) about the flavors and decided to use maple syrup instead of honey in the recipe. Oh my yum!

Since this recipe makes two loaves, I decided make breakfast rolls out of half the dough so in keeping with the french toast theme I added chopped up apples, apple pie spice and maple sugar to the mix.

The challah loaf I braided with three strands, rolled into a round and topped with sesame seeds. After filling, the rolls were tied into knots.

Trust me, once you make this challah, you will never be able to go back to store bought.

Want to join in? If you are a bread baker or are interested in learning, like me, here are the details which I’ve quoted from #TwelveBreads founder, Lora the Cake Duchess’ blog:

“Whether you bake along with us every month or just once, we want to inspire you to love baking your own bread one loaf at a time. We encourage you to make the recipe your own.  Be creative with your challah and put your own spin on it.  Twelve breads. It’s just a different bread a month. A bread baking revolution!”

“Bake this month’s bread (you could use your own recipe!) and post it on your blog with #TwelveBreads in the title of the post by August 1st:

• Include a link back to the current post
• Link your post to the linky tool below. It must be a challah (any challah!) baked in July 2012 (you are welcome to use your own favorite challah recipe)
• We would love to connect with you on Twitter; Tweet us at @TwelveBreads and tag it #TwelveBreads!”

Whole Wheat Maple Challah
Adapted from Foodwanderings Honey Challah

Ingredients
.5 Kg (1.1 lbs) KAF white whole wheat
.5 Kg (1.1 lbs) KAF bread flour
25 Grams (3 ½ packets) of active dry yeast (each packet is 1/4oz)
½ cup sugar in the raw
1 Tablespoon salt
¼ cup grade B maple syrup
2 eggs
1½-2 cups mineral water
½ cup canola oil

For Challah Loaf
1 egg for egg wash
sesame seeds

For Rolls
1 egg for egg wash
1 pealed and chopped apple tossed with a sprinkling of apple pie spice (or cinnamon)
maple sugar

Directions
1. In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, add both flours and dry yeast. Mix until blended. Add the rest of the dough ingredients, sugar through oil, Mix on low speed for 12 minutes until dough is incorporated. Take dough out of mixer bowl, form into a ball and coat with a light film of canola oil. Put back into mixer bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let sit in a cool place until doubles in size, about an hour.

2. Take dough out and cut in half. Place half back into bowl and cover with plastic wrap and set aside for the rolls. Take the other half and split into three equal parts. At this point you can flour the surface if you find it necessary, I didn’t need to but if you do, flour just slightly. For the challah loaf, punch the air out of each of the three parts of the dough and roll them into about a 20 inch long log.

3. Pinch three logs together at one end and braid them into a chain. Pinch the other end once you are done braiding and tuck the pinched sides underneath challah at each edge. Roll the braided challah gently like a snail into a round challah shape. Tuck the outside edge under the round challah gently.

4. Transfer to a parchment lined cookie sheet, cover with plastic wrap and let double, in a cool place, about an hour.

5. To make the rolls, split into 8 or 9 equal pieces. Place all but one back into the bowl and cover. You will work with one piece at a time, keeping the others covered while you do so.
6. Roll the dough into about a 10 inch log and then flatten. You can use a rolling pin or just press it out with your hands (what I did).
7. Take some of the apple pieces and place them on the dough. Carefully fold over and pinch the dough closed. Give it a gently roll just to help seal up the seam.

8. Tie into a simple knot, repeat with each piece of dough.

9.Transfer to a parchment lined cookie sheet, cover with plastic wrap and let double, in a cool place, about an hour.

10. Pre-heat your over to 350F.
11. Beat an egg and brush the risen challah and rolls with the egg wash.
12. Sprinkle the loaf with sesame seeds and the rolls with a little more apple pie spice and the maple sugar.
13.Bake the rolls for 20-25 minutes and the loaf for 30-35 minutes, or until golden. You can bake them at the same time, there is no problem opening the oven and taking the rolls out when they are done.

Note: This bread freezes very well. When it is completely cool, just wrap well in aluminum foil and then place in a zip bag in the freezer. To thaw, take the bread out of the freezer and leave it unwrapped on the counter to thaw completely.

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Apple Bloghop: Roasted Butternut Squash & Apple Soup

I love Autumn! Why? Because it’s not too cold, not too warm; great sweater, scarf, slouchy hat weather (hmm… better figure out some knitting projects before Rhinebeck!). It’s my favorite knitting and cooking season. Apples are probably my favorite fall/winter fruit. There are so many varieties to choose from and they are so versatile, you can cook them, bake them, roast them, puree them, or eat them out of hand, to name a few. One of my favorite ways to use apples is alongside another favorite of mine: butternut squash. Every year I look forward to coming up with news ways to cook with it.

I picked up a few butternut squash and some beautiful apples at the farmer’s market recently and decided to make some soup. I’ve made butternut squash soup dozens of times before and in many different ways but I decided that since gourds and apples are two of the symbolic foods eaten on Rosh Hashanah, I would add it to my menu.

And, since October is #applelove month, I thought this would also be a great recipe, for my contribution, to share with you.

Oh, so why do we eat these foods? Well we eat apples, traditionally dipped in honey, for a sweet new year. Gourds are symbolic because of the similarity in sound to the Hebrew word for proclaim. We eat gourds so that our merits/good deeds may be proclaimed.

Since there will be twelve people at my table this year, I made a large batch. It freezes very well but you can easily cut this recipe in half if you would like.

October is #applelove month!

Do you have a favorite apple recipe? Let me know I’d love to hear about it.

Please join in on the #applelove fun by linking up any apple recipe from the month of October 2011.  Don’t forget to link back to this post, so that your readers know to come stop by the #applelove event. The twitter hashtag is #applelove .

Enjoy!

Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

Ingredients
6 lbs butternut squash, cubed
3 large Rome apples, cubed (I like to keep the skin on)
1 large onion, cut in to chunks
1 teaspoon allspice
½ teaspoon cumin
2 tablespoons canola or mild olive oil, divided
½ cup diced onion
1 tablespoon minced fresh garlic
½ cup white wine
6 cups stock, water or a combination of both
Salt and white pepper to taste
Toasted butternut squash seeds (optional)

Instructions
1. Preheat Oven to 375 degrees.
2. Coat two baking sheets with cooking spray and distribute the squash, apples and chunks of onion onto both sheets.
3. Drizzle 1 tablespoon oil over the squash mix; sprinkle with allspice, cumin, salt and white pepper. Toss to combine.
4. Roast until the vegetables are tender, about 45 minutes, tossing about halfway through.
5. Heat remaining tablespoon oil in a Dutch oven and add diced onion and garlic. Sprinkle with salt. Sweat until translucent.
6. Add the white wine and reduce to half.
7. Add squash mixture and stock bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
8. Puree soup in batches in a blender, or use an immersion blender.
9. Add additional stock or water to thin if needed.
10. Serve garnished with toasted butternut squash seeds if desired.

Cook’s Notes

• You can make this soup in phases. Roast the squash, apples and onions. Allow to cool and store in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, begin with step five above. The cooking time in step seven should be increased until the vegetables are warmed through.
• This soup freezes well. I usually store it in batches in plastic containers.

Co-Hosted by:
Baker Street – Anuradha
Bloc de recetas – Salomé
Bon a croquer – Valerie
CafeTerraBlog – Terra
Cake Duchess – Lora
Elephant Eats – Amy
Hobby And More – Richa
Knitstamatic – Deb – That would be me!
Mike’s Baking – Mike
Mis Pensamientos – Junia
My Twisted Recipes – Dudut
Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives – Lisa
Queen’s Notebook – Elizabeth
Simply Reem – Reem
Skip to Malou – Malou
Teaspoon of Spice – Deanna & Serena
The Daily Palette – Annapet
The Spicy RD – EA
Vegan Miam – Rika
Versatile Vegetarian Kitchen – Champa

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Apples – Cardamom – Crumbs, What Could be Bad?

I’ve been on this baking kick lately.  Last weekend I made the brownies pictured on the cover of the February issue of Bon Appétit Magazine.  A major hit with my brownie loving husband.  This past weekend I made a coffee cake.  I actually saw this recipe about three weeks ago and knew I just had to make it.  You see it’s not just any coffee cake, it has apples in it and I really like apples.  They can satisfy so many cravings depending on the variety: if I want pure sweetness I choose red delicious; if I want a little sweet/tart action, I go for braeburn; if I want pure tartness, it’s a granny smith kind of day.

For me, a coffee cake should be moist and flavorful, not dry and tasteless or so heavy on the butter I feel as though I’ve just bitten into a stick and most important, the right amount of crumb topping.  Let’s talk about crumbs for a moment, shall we?  This is kind of a peeve of mine.  The crumbs are a topping, hence the name Coffee CAKE and not Coffee CRUMB.  Call me crazy but I actually believe there should be more cake in my coffee cake then crumb.  While we’re on the subject, I have another peeve about crumbs, they should be just the right balance between moist and dry so when baked they don’t turn into jaw-cracking pebbles in my mouth.  Maybe the problem is some of the so called coffee cakes I’ve had are actually crumb cakes and therefore legitimately more crumb than cake.  Is there actually a difference, I mean technically really or is it just regional nomenclature muddying the waters?  Hey, if you have an answer, let me know.

Rant over.

Anyway, as I was saying, I saw this recipe for a “Moist Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake” earlier this month posted on the bakedbyrachel blog.  Rachel by the way is a really great baker and a very nice person I met on Twitter, you should definitely check out her blog.  She described the cake as being very moist, perhaps more-so than most and on a whim decided to throw in some apples…brilliant.

In the spirit of full disclosure, you should know I’m not very good at following recipe directions; I have this tendency to tweak them a bit.  Admittedly less so when I bake than when I cook – it’s a science after all – but I still couldn’t leave well enough alone.  Some of my changes were based on suggestions/ideas Rachel made on her blog and some were my own doing.

The original recipe called for 1 cup of milk and 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of sour cream.  Now, I love the tang sour cream can give to baked goods so I thought I’d up that a bit.  Rachel suggested omitting the milk and doubling the sour cream and/or cutting it with yogurt; I did the latter.  I figure if I am going to continue on this baking binge I’ll need to justify it by adding some healthful aspects, so I used a combo of full-fat sour cream and low-fat yogurt. Hey, it works for me so let’s just go with that.  This did make the batter a bit dryer so I mixed in a little milk until the texture seemed right.

I also have this thing about the combination of cardamom and apples.  I don’t know what it is but the earthy, floral essence of cardamom always makes me smile and as I said before, I love apples.  I put these two beauties together on a whim years ago when I made baked apples and that was it for me.  Apples and cardamom are for me what apples and cinnamon are for most other people.  Not that I have anything against the latter, I do that too but oh cardamom.  Seriously, try it some time.

I made a few other tweaks to the amount of flour in the topping and the sugar and vanilla in the cake batter.

I also shortened the cook time by 10-15 minutes off the original time.   I was guessing that with less actual liquid in the batter it probably wouldn’t need the full 70-75 minutes; it baked for 60 minutes.

Here’s my version of Rachel’s delicious recipe. I hope she likes the changes I made and I hope you enjoy it too!

Original Recipe can be found here.

Crumb Topping ½ cup butter, melted ¼ cup granulated sugar (I use raw sugar) ¼ cup + 2 tsp brown sugar, lightly packed 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon 1 ½ teaspoons ground cardamom 1 cup + 3 tablespoons all purpose flour Flavor Ribbon Ingredients 2 teaspoons brown sugar 2 teaspoons granulated sugar ¼ teaspoon cinnamon ½ teaspoon cardamom

Cake Ingredients 1 ¾ cups all purpose flour Scant 1 cup of granulated sugar 1 teaspoon salt 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon cardamom ½ teaspoon cinnamon 2/3 cup sour cream 1/3 cup yogurt 2 tablespoons milk 1 tablespoon vanilla 2 eggs, lightly beaten

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Spray a 9-inch baking pan with non-stick cooking spray (I use Trader Joe’s).
2. In a medium bowl, combine the melted butter, both sugars, cinnamon and cardamom until well blended.
3. Add in the flour in batches and mix with a fork until chunky and crumbly, set aside.
4. In a small bowl, combine all of the flavor ribbon ingredients and set aside.
5. In a large mixing bowl whisk all of the dry ingredients, flour through cinnamon together.
6. Add the sour cream, yogurt, milk, vanilla and eggs. Mix until well combined.
7. Fold in the apples.
8. Pour about half of the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the flavor ribbon over the filling and then top with the remaining batter.
9. Break up the crumb topping if it’s stuck together and cover the batter with the crumbs.
10. Bake in the oven for 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
11. Allow the cake to cool completely in the pan before slicing.

Enjoy!

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