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Applesauce Spice Cake

Applesauce Spice Cake

July marks the beginning oJf the apple season here. The brightly striped Gravensteins are the first to ripen. And when they do, we spend weeks making homemade applesauce and apple butter. As our freezer is now packed with applesauce, and there's more to come, I thought I would experiment with a recipe in the newly published, practical cookbook Kitchen Sense by Mitchell Davis. The applesauce spice cake came out as good as promised - super moist and spicy. Although the recipe is billed as a "cake", it is similar to banana, zucchini and pumpkin breads; it would make a great muffin as well.

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Applesauce Spice Cake

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup applesauce
  • 1/4 cup plain yogurt diluted a bit with milk, or 1/4 cup of buttermilk
  • 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts
  • 1/2 cup raisins

Method

1 Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter and flour an 8-in square baking pan, set aside.

2 Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Set aside.

3 In an electric mixer, beat butter until light, add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate after each addition. Add the vanilla and the applesauce and beat until smooth.

4 Mix in half of the dry ingredients. Just before they are blended, add the thinned yogurt (or buttermilk). Then mix in the rest of the dry ingredients, until completely incorporated. Do not over-mix.

5 Pour out the batter into your prepared cake pan. Place in the middle rack of the 375°F oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, until done. The cake should spring back to the touch, and a toothpick or thin skewer should come out clean after being inserted in various spots in the middle of the cake. Remove the cake from the oven. Let cool for 15 minutes. Then invert to cool completely on a rack.

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14 Comments

Sounds yummy, I'll have to give it a shot. I have a slightly different version that I like to make too - no raisins or nuts in it & slightly different proportions (plus add 2 T of cocoa in the batter and a topping of chocolate chips, brown sugar and nuts)- but the concept is the same. Served warm with ice cream, it is the best. It is my husband's favorite dessert. Full recipe won't fit in the comment section though! ;)

Posted by: Liz on August 17, 2006 6:08 AM

My mother makes something similar to this at Christmas time and makes a rum butter sauce to put over it. Makes the kitchen smell wonderful.

Posted by: Kari on August 17, 2006 7:52 AM

I would love to make this as muffins. How long do I bake it?

Posted by: gail on August 17, 2006 11:58 AM

I love it! I made the recipe into muffins, and they are the perfect snack. Gail, I baked mine for 25 minutes at 400, and they came out perfectly moist and golden brown. There was enough batter for 12 muffins an about a 1" high "cake" in the bottom of a loaf pan. Yum, and thanks!

Posted by: Marie on August 30, 2006 10:53 AM

I tried this recipe last night, and it is delicous, but it took about an hour at 375 to bake.

Posted by: Suzanne on September 8, 2006 3:41 PM

I made this cake last week. It was wonderful. Not too sweet, just right. I baked it in a loaf pan, and it took about 50 minutes. Thank you so much for this lovely recipe, dear Elise!

Posted by: Agota on November 6, 2007 3:22 PM

This recipe is perfect as is. I made it with Elise's applesauce. It was easy and tasty. Thanks, Elise.

Posted by: mary on October 9, 2008 5:41 PM

I made this cake today, but unfortunately the bottom got black (yeah, I know what it means :)), till the time the upper part was done. I checked it often, even turned the oven temp down at the end. Maybe because of the applesauce, the cake is done even when still sticks on the needle? I made double amount, coz the baking-pans around here are much bigger. Can that be the problem?
Thanks for the advises!

Sounds like the pan was too close to the heat source. Also check the oven temp. The temp guidelines I give are in Fahrenheit, not Celsius. If you live anywhere other than America, you will need to convert the temp. ~Elise

Posted by: Zsuzsi on October 10, 2008 7:09 AM

Just wondered how well it would work in loaf pans? My husband remembers an applesauce cake done in loaf pans and then frosted with buttercream type frosting after they cooled.

Posted by: SINA KLEIN on November 2, 2008 9:06 AM

I made this today and it was delicious and moist. It took about 50 minutes. I forgot to add the raisins and walnuts, so I'm looking forward to adding them next time. Thanks for the recipe!

Posted by: Jenny on February 22, 2009 3:21 PM

The recipe doesn't indicate what size pan to use. But the picture looks like you used an 8 x 8... is this correct?

Yes, that will work. ~Elise

Posted by: Cheryl on May 8, 2009 11:28 AM

At times when work gets hectic I run to my kitchen to decompress :-). Yesterday was one of those days so I went to Simply Recipes web site, saw this applesauce cake and decided to make it.

I love it! Very simple to make and so packed with flavors.

Posted by: Esther on June 3, 2009 9:39 AM

Made this last night to use up the jar of applesauce in the fridge and it was so good. The cake was moist and delicious. Very happy with this one, Thanks Elise.

Posted by: SHELBY on August 20, 2009 8:12 AM

Came out great, but much lighter in color than the cake portrayed in the post--I wonder why that would be. I substituted one cup of flour with whole wheat flour, and even added 2x the amount of cloves than indicated by mistake, but still quite light.

Posted by: Elissa on October 4, 2009 6:51 PM

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