October 20, 2021

Allspice Applesauce Cupcakes with Spiced Brown Sugar Frosting ~#TheCakeSliceBakers

These Allspice Applesauce Cupcakes have just enough spice to make your tastebuds tingle
and are topped with decadent Spiced Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting.



The Cake Slice Bakers are baking through Little Everyday Cakes by Candace Floyd in 2021. It is hard to believe that we are in the final months of baking through this book. The premise of this book is that these little cakes are perfectly sized, absolutely delicious, and serve about four to six. Their size means that they are just enough to polish off in one sitting and removes the need to find a place to store them or worry about wasted ingredients. It also helps that most of the recipes have an ingredients that you would commonly find at home or that are easy to find at the grocery store.





The Cake Slice Bakers are a group of dedicated bakers who all love cake. Each year we choose a new cake-centric cookbook and bake our way through it. Every month we are given 3 choices and on the 20th day of each month we reveal what we have chosen on our blogs. This month's choices were Allspice Applesauce Cake, Pumpkin Spice Cake with Coconut Topping, and Chocolate Jack Cake. I do love a good spice cake, the spicer the better, so I chose the Allspice Applesauce Cake and put a little twist on it by making them into cupcakes and adding a frosting.




The original recipe calls for this to be a square cake sprinkled with coarse sugar, but I thought that cupcakes would be more fun and I added a cream cheese frosting too - because why not?  I do love a good spice cake, and the spicer the better.  I think you know where I am going with this, right?  Why yes, I did add more spice than the recipe called for and I added a lot of spice to the Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting too.  The frosting is very rich and you need extra spice in there to cut through that richness. The finishing touch on top is a candied pecan.  I did not add any pecans to the cake itself as one of my daughters does not like nuts in cakes, so I felt this was a good compromise.  Not entirely sure if buying a Costco-size jar of candied jar of pecans was the best idea I've ever had. Every time I walk by the lid seems to fall off and I have a handful of pecans.  Anyone know how many extra steps a day I need to walk to offset this? #cantstopwontstop.





Allspice Applesauce Cupcakes with Spiced Brown Sugar Frosting

Ingredients
Cake ~
  • 120g (1 cup) all-purpose flour
  • ¾ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ salt
  • 2 teaspoons allspice
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 egg, room temperature
  • 100g (½ cup) granulated sugar
  • 50g (¼ cup, packed) light brown sugar
  • 185g (¾ cup) unsweetened applesauce
  • 65ml (⅓ cup) canola oil
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 40g (¼ cup) chopped pecans, toasted, optional
  • coarse sugar for decorating, optional
Frosting ~
  • 225g (8 oz) cream cheese, room temperature
  • 50g butter (¼ cup) butter, softened
  • 3 teaspoons allspice
  • 2 teaspoons ground ginger
  • 65g (½ cup) powdered sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preparation
Cake ~
  1. Preheat oven to 180℃ (350℉).
  2. Line a cupcake tray with cupcake liners.
  3. In a small bowl, add the flour, baking soda, allspice, and ginger and mix to combine.
  4. In a medium bowl, add the egg and sugars; use an electric mixer on medium to speed to beat for until light, about 3 minutes.
  5. Add the applesauce, oil, and vanilla and beat until blended.
  6. Reduce the speed to low, and add the flour mixture a little at a time, beating until just smooth.
  7. Fold in the pecan if using.
  8. Pour or spoon the batter into the liners, filling about half way to avoid spilling over the sides when baking.
  9. Bake cupcakes for 20-25 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.
  10. Place the pan on a wire rack and allow to cool for 15 minutes, then remove the cupcakes from the pan and place them on the wire rack to cool completely.
  11. Once fully cooled, decorate with the frosting.

Frosting ~
  1. In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth.
  2. Add butter and continue to beat until smooth, scraping down the sides when needed.
  3. Add the vanilla, brown sugar, allspice, and ginger and beat for 5 minutes until light and fluffy.
  4. Once cupcakes are fully cooled, decorate with frosting as desired.




Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is Little Everyday Cakes by Candace Floyd. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!

Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the thumbnail pictures below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.

The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book.





It is a new year and a new book - Little Everyday Cakes - and our choices for October 2021 were ~ 



Allspice Applesauce Cake



4 comments:

  1. Love the adaptations you made to the recipe. Those cupcakes look very tempting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great adaptation! I love cupcakes. Can't wait to try this again.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow, Felice! These look SO GOOD! They are perfect as cupcakes, and the frosting and pecan sound out of this world!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love your little cupcakes and your frosting is so creative looking!

    ReplyDelete

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