Apple Spice Cake with Maple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

I love autum. I always have, but that love has definitely intensified througought my adult years. 

In my childhood, fall always meant new beginnings for me. That's when school started and everything was new. New schools, new friends, new relationships. It was a time for beginnings, even as nature began exploding with the colors and smells of dying. 

I love the temperature change, the crispness to the air, and the smell of smoke from fireplaces and outdoor fires. I love carving pumpkins and roasting pumpkin seeds and creating pumpkin treats such as Pumpkin Spice Bread. 

I also love apples - a good crisp sweet and tart apple to enjoy, especially a Granny Smith coated in hard red cinnamon candy... you know, candy apples, and making apple sauce for my daughter with as many varieties of apples as I can get my hands on. The batch I made for her the other day had 10 different apples in it. That is what makes a delicious apple sauce! 

Which leads me to my new adventure - using apples in cakes. Y'all. Seriously. This is a cake you need to make. I use some brown sugar for a more caramel flavor to the cake and a ton of spices, which I love. But if that isn't enough fall goodness for you, I then top the cake with a Maple Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing. Yep. It's a mouthful, but it is amazing. Let me know if you give this cake a try and how you like it!

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda 

1 Tbsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp clove

1/4 tsp allspice

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups olive oil (vegetable oil works as well; I've just really been enjoying the extra flavor and moisture of olive oil).

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup chopped nuts - walnuts or pecans will work

Another 1/4-1/2 cup nuts for toasting for garnish

3 cups shredded apples - honeycrisp, Granny Smith, gala, Fuji, Macintosh, or pink lady are good options (you have more flexibility here - if you like chunks of apple, just dice these small, or use the large or small shredder depending on the texture you want from your apples. The smaller you shred, the more it will just melt into the cake)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a skillet over medium heat, toast pecans until fragrant; shift them around often so that they don't burn. Allow to cool completely. Combine the flour, sugars, baking soda, salt, and spices into a large bowl. Use a whisk to combine all the ingredients together. If your flour is clumpy, you should seriously consider sifting it into your bowl. If you don't you might end up with flour clumps throughout your batter.

Shred the apple. If you want color and more texture, don't peel your apples. If you don't, then peel them. It's your preference here. I ended up peeling two of my apples and not peeling two of them for a bit of color and texture.

Add the eggs, oil, and vanilla to the dry ingredients. Stir until combined.

Fold in the apples and nuts until mixed.

Spread batter into a prepared 9x13 or bundt pan. Spray it, use crisco and flour, or use parchment paper.

Bake 35-45 minutes until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. If baking cupcakes, bake 15-20 minutes until done. It can have a few moist crumbs, but you don't want the toothpick to be wet.

While the cake cools, prepare the frosting.

8 oz cream cheese

8 oz unsalted butter

4 cups powdered sugar

1-1 1/2 tsp maple extract

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp cinnamon 

Pinch of nutmeg

Pinch of salt

In a large bowl or stand mixer cream the butter and cream cheese together until light and fluffy with the whisk attachment. As with the flour, you might want to sift your confectioner sugar if its clumpy. Add part of the confection sugar and blend in. Add the remaining confectioner sugar and combine. Add the vanilla and maple extracts and the cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.Whisk until incorporated; scrape down sides, and then mix some more. Turn speed up to high and whip some air into the frosting until it's light and fluffy. Frost the cake, and then top with toasted pecans. Now, enjoy!

Fall Spice Oatmeal Cookies

I love autumn. The spell of burning leaves. This crispness of the morning air. The amazing colors. And the delicious tastes of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and ginger that are so prevalent this time of year. Thus was born my Fall Spice Oatmeal Cookies that I took to work a couple weeks ago (yes, it's taken me a while to get around to blogging this! lol) I used the same base recipe as my Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies, but I added some spices to the dough and added pumpkin spice chips, cinnamon chips, and chopped crystalized ginger. These are warm and spicy and aromatic and absolutely delicious! When my daughter tried the first one of the batch she said that they tasted like fall. If you love fall and fall tastes too, then you really should try this!

1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp all spice
1/4 tsp clove
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3 cups oats
12 ounces Pumpkin Spice Chips
6 ounces Cinnamon Chips
1/2 cup chopped crystallized ginger

Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, all spice, clove, and nutmeg in a bowl and whisk together. Crystallized ginger is pretty potent, so chop it into pretty small pieces. 

Beat together butter and sugars until creamy.

Add eggs and vanilla extract, and blend until combined.

Add flour mixture, and blend until incorporated. 

Mix in the oatmeal, pumpkin spice chips, cinnamon chips and crystallized ginger.

Heap by rounded teaspoon full, or medium cookie scoop if you have one, onto parchment lined cookie baking sheet.

Bake cookies at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 9-12 minutes until cookies begin to turn golden brown. Cookies will continue to cook and set after being removed from the oven, so do not overcook. Allow cookies to rest on the pan for 3-5 minutes, and then remove to a wire rack to completely cool.

Pumpkin Spice Bread

When I was a teenager, I lived in upstate New York. There was this restaurant and motel on Canandaigua Lake that my parents and I ate at periodically called Kelloggs Pan Tree Inn. After you were seated at Kelloggs, the waitress would deliver a basket full of rolls and muffins. These muffins were delicious, and for years I never knew what they were or even thought much about it. Enter the age of the Internet, and I decided that I wanted to try and make those muffins and began searching to find out what they were so that I could search for a recipe. I was so surprised to learn that they were pumpkin spice bread. While searching for something that might get close to the experience of Kelloggs Pan Tree Inn pumpkin spice bread muffins, I found this recipe and, as we used to do in the old days hehehe, I printed it out. I only altered it slightly by increasing the amount 0f spices in it, but otherwise, I've held to the original recipe. I've received many compliments on this bread, and it is a perfect fall recipe. You really should try it.

3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 16-ounce can pumpkin
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp cloves
1.5-2 tsps cinnamon
1-1.5 tsps nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup chopped walnuts
Sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees; butter and flour (or spray with baking spray) two 9x5x3 loaf pans, 1 bundt pan, or three muffin tins. In a small bowl, combine flour, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl, combine sugar and oil until mixed.

Add eggs and pumpkin and combine until blended.

Sift the dry ingredients into the wet and blend until combined.

Add nuts and mix until combined.

Pour the mix into the chosen baking pans, sprinkle with sugar (I use Morena Pure Cane Sugar) and bake. For a bundt pan or two loaf pans, bake 60-70 minutes; for muffins or mini loaf pans, bake 18-22 minutes.

Pumpkin Zucchini Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

Several weeks ago, I tried my hand at creating a cookie recipe and Cinnamon Chip Oatmeal Raisin Cookies was the result. You know what? It turned out really well! So, I decided to try my hand at creating a cake. For all of the creative side of my personality, I also have a very mathematical, analytical side as well, and that kicked into high gear as I prepared for this recipe. I wanted to do something like a carrot cake, but based loosely on my pumpkin bread recipe. I did research on what exactly it was that made something a "cake" versus being a "bread," and I found several good blogs to help explain the difference. Then I broke out Excel, and listed the ingredients for my carrot cake recipe, pumpkin bread recipe and a recipe for carrot bread that I found. Then with the knowledge I learned from the blogs, I compared the recipes and decided roughly on the following - I did tweak it just a little bit more as I was preparing it. I have to admit that I was a little scared to tell my coworkers that I had brought Pumpkin Zucchini Cake for Monday treat. Doesn't really sound like much of a treat does it? Let me tell you though, it went over very well. I received lots of compliments on it. Even my daughter said it was delicious, and she had NO idea that there was even zucchini in it! Maybe it was just the cream cheese icing, but the spices in the cake really shine and it was really, really tasty. Want to sneak just a little more vegetables into your recipes, then this one should go over very well.

3 cups all-purpose
1 tsp baking soda
2.5 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsps nutmeg
1 tsp cloves
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 can pumpkin puree
1-2 whole zucchini, peeled and shredded
1 cup chopped/diced walnuts

(By the way, please ignore the vanilla in the photo - it actually shouldn't have been there, but I didn't take a second picture without out it. Oops.)

Sift together dry ingredients, and then set aside.

Combine oil and sugar in large bowl or stand-mixer bowl.

Add eggs and pumpkin. Mix until combined.

Add flour mixture in two rounds. Mix until combined.

Add zucchini and nuts. Mix until combined.

Pour into greased and flour cake pan (9X13, two 8" or 9" rounds, or bundt pan).

Bake at 350 degrees Farenheit for 40-55 minutes or until cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Allow cake to cool for 10-15 minutes in pan, and then turn out onto wire rack to cool completely. While cake cools, prepare cream cheese icing.

1 lb powdered sugar
2 tsps vanilla extract
1/2 cup butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened

Cream together butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy.

Slowly mix in powdered sugar until it is all incorporated; add vanilla, and then continue to blend until smooth. Spread icing onto cake, and enjoy!