I love edible gifts. Sometimes so much that I don’t even share it. Not even with my ten year old son. This was one of those kinds. Usha of My Spicy Kitchen had gifted me, Pavani and Mireille this wonderful apple sauce cake when we met sometime back. Her gift was a mini cake beautifully packaged and presented in a cute checkered cupcake liner. It was very impressive. So impressive that I almost finished the cake on my own (remember – it was a mini cake). But guilt won over and I left some of this delicious cake for my kid, but it took some serious will power…let me tell you that!
I got the recipe from her (from King Arthur Flour) and baked it soon after. And I am sure I will bake this again for this holiday season. I am just inspired looking at the recipe again! I don’t buy apple sauce at home, but bought it specifically for this recipe. I am thinking of making smaller cakes like Usha did so that it’s easier to gift.
The cake is made with whole wheat flour. It is moist and soft and I love the addition of raisins to the cake. This makes a wonderful snack cake. With the apple sauce and the whole wheat, we can almost label it ‘healthy’. Well, healthy if you ignore the amount of sugar and butter. Or maybe healthier compared to other cakes. My honest opinion is that cakes are not healthy food even if it is made with whole wheat and apples, but we are good as long as we are sticking to that one single slice. Or may be that single mini cake :D.
Read on for the recipe.
Recipe source: King Arthur Flour
Ingredients:
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup butter (113gms), softened
- 2 large eggs
- 1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- a pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1/2 cup chopped nuts, optional
- 1-2 tablespoon Icing sugar, optional
Method:
- Pre heat the oven to 180 C/ 350F. Grease and line a 9″ baking pan with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, add the dry ingredients – flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon – and mix well using a wire whisk.
- Using a stand mixer or hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together well. Add the eggs, one at a time and beat it in.
- Now add the dry ingredients in three batches, alternating it with the applesauce.
- Fold in the nuts and raisins gently. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 40-50 minutes or until a skewer comes free of crumbs when inserted in the middle of the cake.
- Take off the oven and let the cake rest in the pan for at least ten minutes before taking out of the pan. Slice once the cake is completely cool. You can add some icing sugar on top if you feel like.
This post is a part of the Bake-a-thon 2017
My Kitchen Trials 
Wow! the cake looks so good Rajni especially your first pic
LikeLike
Wow , what a beautiful cake Rajani. Love apple sauce and raisins in bakes.Awesome clicks!! And , I too hide chocolates and cream biscuits to eat in leisure :)
LikeLike
This cake sure does sounds like a wonderful edible gift idea.
LikeLike
although my recipe is different, I baked this last month and loved it entirely – such a light cake right!
LikeLike
Ha ha Rajani, that introduction, mind blowing man!! Semme!!!(some feelings are expressed better in mother tongue!!!)
Love the cake, I would love to try!! Yup whole wheat or not, the amount of sugar and oil makes it hellthee
LikeLike
Apple sauce works prefectly awesome for baking some beautiful cakes and yours looks absolutely fabulous with prefect texture.
LikeLike
I remember that yummy apple cake Usha gave us. Your full scale version looks equally delicious. Yumm!!
LikeLike
Loved the action packed sugar powder drizzle shot ! I love whole wheat cakes and always look for subs for white sugar and butter and egg. That’s my way , I guess, of making the entire cake healthy. The addition of apple sauce makes it so yumm. I have stared making apple sauce atbhome and find it very useful as an egg substitute
LikeLike
I shamelessly hide chocolate and pieces of cake from my son too (hey!, i don’t wnt him to get addicted, right?!). And I love how this cake looks. Must have been so moist.
LikeLike
I bet the applesauce made it really moist… I don’t think one stick butter is too much considering there is quite an amount of flour in it as well… :) Indulgence at times is definitely OK… and I am so relieved I am not alone in the fact of not sharing with the kids! I sometimes eat in the dark so that the kids don’t know what I am eating, but they still sniff and come to ask what I am eating, and then I roar at them, why do you have to spy on me? :D Hehe…
LikeLike
Cakes are not healthy food ? Well , well ..do you have to tell that ! To be honest I love them and shut what my mind says when I want to eat one . And this cake looks fabulous ,had it been eggless it would have disappeared from the screen. Lol. love the clicks too .
LikeLike
The cake is simply awesome Rajani, love how good it looks and the final texture too..rocking cake! Honestly, there is a limit to which we should stick to when it comes to healthy food, lets say soups..thats why I don’t make soups..cakes are not healthy food, its great food..:)..I will soon be baking this Rajani..
LikeLiked by 1 person
So yummy recipe :)
LikeLike