nuts Archives - Wood & Spoon

Maple Apple Cake

There should have been maple apple cake. Yes, a birthday can be well-celebrated without stacked autumnal desserts, but if you only turn thirty once, shouldn’t it include the best tasting cake of the year? If you’re celebrating a birthday anytime soon, don’t make my mistake- make sure your party includes this cake.

As you get older, birthdays get kinda weird. Sometimes it feels a little uncomfortable to let people celebrate you the way they might have in your teens or early twenties. There’s usually a million other things to do and a dwindling list of friends who are available to celebrate. Sometimes there are kids involved, which makes the idea of planning any party that you can’t buy in a hyper-themed box set from Target seem like a huge waste of time. Energy, as with most other things in adulthood, is a limiting factor here too, because who actually wants to plan or order one more thing, particularly if it can’t be done from the convenience of the Amazon app on your phone?

On Celebrating

It feels right to celebrate other people. I’m the first one to volunteer a cake or a bubbly cocktail when a friend’s birthday rolls around. I have stacks of birthday cards just waiting to be personalized and delivered to the people I love. But while I adore birthdays or any other excuse for confetti and balloons, there’s a little bit of pride that gets in the way when it comes to celebrating myself. Isn’t that gross?

On one hand, I don’t want to be the self-centered fool who says, “Look at me, look at me, it’s my birthday! Buy me a crown and make me a cake, minion!” But on the other hand, I kinda like the idea of rolling up to my own birthday party feeling like Beyonce- a posse of girlfriends, popped bottles, and self-assured sass in tow. Even the most modest of people have to admit that there’s nothing like being the birthday queen. Candles and champagne, confetti and cheers make even the most conservative human feel like the million bucks they deserve to be on the annual recognition of their birth. Is there anything wrong with wanting to feel the love?

This year, I felt celebrated. My girlfriends changed a scheduled meeting into an impromptu birthday party and my family traveled north to celebrate with presents and pie. My husband treated me to several thoughtful birthday happies, and it didn’t hurt that we wound up in Chicago for my big day. Gifts and cake and cards are fine, but the best part of a birthday is being loved on by the people you love back; no amount of Beyonce can top that feeling.

Maple Apple Cake

My one regret this year is that I didn’t get to eat this maple apple cake.

I want this cake to be my birthday cake. This is the kind of dessert I want to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As heinous it is to admit, I want to frost my entire face with the maple buttercream from this cake and casually lick it off all day long. If that makes me a disgusting human, I frankly do not care.

Here, three rounds of buttermilk cake layer with a syrupy, fresh apple filling and candied nuts. This maple apple cake is a stunner and nothing short of indulgent. The buttercream is sweet with brown sugar and maple syrup and is the perfect addition to such a fall-tasting cake. If warm flavors, fresh fruit, and the optional addition of bourbon sounds like a winning to you, you’re in luck.

Making the Cake

To prepare it, we start by baking up some cake layers. I adapted the cake recipe from this cake. First, the cake layers bake in advance and freeze is needed, making day of cake assembly fairly simple. Next, the apple filling is a make-ahead item consisting of apples, butter, and brown sugar. Finally, if your adult palate is inclined, try a bit of bourbon in the filling. The alcohol cooks off, but those warm bourbon flavors remain. Even the least discerning tastebuds will notice that this cake has a punch of something special.

On the day you assemble the cake, start by preparing frosting, leveling the cakes, and stacking. The apple filling pools between layers with a dam of frosting and gets a sprinkle of nuts. Roasted nuts can be substituted here, but certainly a cake like this deserves the pizazz of caramelized sugar. This maple apple cake keeps in the fridge for a few days, but I can guarantee it won’t last that long.

Give this maple apple cake a try and celebrate your people well this week. Happy Thursday and happy fall, ya’ll!

If you like this maple apple cake, be sure to try:

Caramel Apple Pie

Apple Crumb Cake

Apple Crisp Ice Cream

Breakfast Danish

Maple Oatmeal Biscuits

Maple Apple Cake

Print Recipe

This maple apple cake is three layers of buttermilk cake filled with a bourbon apple pie filling, candied nuts, and maple buttercream.

Author: Kate Wood
Prep Time: 60
Cook Time: 30
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Yield: 12

Ingredients

For the apple filling:

2 cups (230 gm) peeled and ¼-1/2” diced apples
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup (115 gm) brown sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice or good quality bourbon

For the cake:

2–1/2 cups (325 gm) cake flour
2–1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1–1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup (225 gm) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup (200 gm) sugar
¾ cup (165 gm) packed brown sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1–1/2 cups (360 mL) buttermilk
1–1/2 teaspoons vanilla

For the maple buttercream:

2 cups (450 gm) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup (100 gm) brown sugar
4–1/2 cups (510 gm) powdered sugar
1/3 cup (205 gm) maple syrup
1 cup chopped candied pecans (optional)

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Instructions

To prepare the apple filling:

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, cook the butter, stirring continuously until it melts and barely begins to turn golden brown. Immediately add the apples and stir to combine. Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a simmer, and cook for 5 minutes or until the juices have thickened slightly and the apples have barely softened. Remove the filling to a heat-safe bowl and cool completely prior to using.

To prepare the cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease the sides and line the bottoms of 3-8” round cake pans with parchment paper and set aside.
In a small bowl, combine the cake flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside.
In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter, sugar, and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula and add each egg one at a time on low speed, mixing just until combined. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Add about 1/3 of the dry ingredients followed by the vanilla and about half of the buttermilk. Mix until combined and then repeat this process once more, finishing by adding the last third of the dry ingredients. Scrape the sides of the bowl and fold in any unincorporated bits of batter.
Distribute the batter evenly among the three pans and bake in the preheated oven 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool completely prior to assembling cake.

To prepare the maple buttercream:

Cream the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the brown sugar and cream for an additional minute. Scrape the sides of the bowl and add the confectioner’s sugar. Mix on low speed until incorporated and then drizzle in the maple syrup. Beat on medium speed until well combined. If needed, add a bit of water to thin out frosting or add a bit more powdered sugar to thicken up. You can also briefly place the frosting in the fridge to firm up as needed.

To assemble the cake:

Use a serrated knife to level the cakes. Smooth a small amount of frosting on an 8” cake board or plate and center a single cake layer on top. Smooth a thin layer of frosting on top of the cake layer. Using a piping bag (see notes) fitted with a large round tip, pipe a dam around the outer rim of the top of the cake. The dam should be at least ¼-1/2” tall to prevent the apple filling from squirting out the sides. Spread approximately half of the apple filling inside the dam and sprinkle with about 1/3 of the nuts. Pipe a bit of frosting on top of the apple filling to help the next layer of cake stick. Stack the second cake layer on top and repeat the entire process once more. Place the final cake layer on top. Spread a thin coat of frosting (crumb coat) all over the cake and allow it to set up in the fridge prior to applying the final coat of frosting. You can skip this step if desired. Decorate the top of the cake with a few nuts and extra frosting, if desired. Cake will keep in the refrigerator covered in plastic for up to three days.

Notes

If you don’t have a piping bag, you can place 1-1/2 cups of frosting in a freezer Ziploc bag. Seal the bag and snip one of the corners off the end of the bag and use that to pipe frosting.
You can substitute different varieties of berries here, but the amount of sugar needed in the filling will differ based on which berry you choose. Adjust according to your preference.

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake

36 Comments / Cakes, Frozen Desserts

Before we dive in to today’s hot fudge sundae cake, I need your help. I’m reaching out to you, human to human, desperately in need of encouragement, advice, whatever you’ve got for me.

You see, I recently decided to branch out beyond my usual arsenal of dinner recipes. I had grown comfortable with simple dinners of a lean meat, vegetable, and starch, and wanted to start experimenting with new recipes and flavors. It seemed realistic to incorporate one new recipe into our weekly rituals, so I made that my goal and started cooking new things.

Unmet Expectations

Like most new ventures of my naive adulthood, I began this quest with grandiose expectations. I saw my family sitting around the dinner table, happily slurping bowls of Vietnemese pho. Aimee operates her chopsticks with age-defying precision and George requests extra pickled onions. No one picks through their food, complains, or asks “what’s for dessert” because they’re entirely enamored with their super-authentic, made-from-scratch meal. “And honey, is that a new dress? You look almost as ravishing as this bowl of noodles!”

There’s other nights too, ones where Brett suddenly develops a deep appreciation for mushrooms and we dive into hearty dishes like creamy polenta with braised beef cheek and chanterelles. Aimee and I pick herbs from our garden for spicy fish tacos and even spicier red curries, margaritas and mango lassies entirely optional.

In theory, it all works. I shop for groceries, sweat over the stove, and people enjoy the food. It should be a given, right?

Dinnertime Terror

Wrong. Instead, dinnertime is a personal beating, a full-blown assassination of this mother’s morale, as not one but three pairs of eyes stare at their dinner with disgust and despair. There’s no tofu meatloaf or fried frog legs on the table- just a simple meal of (what I wrongfully assumed to be) dinnertime basics- things like broccoli, chicken, and quinoa. You’d think I was serving a whole human head with a side of gun powder and hand grenades.

Brett pushes his food around and proceeds to ask 125 questions about the preparation of the ingredients on his plate. Aimee goes to time out twice during dinner and has to be hand-fed broccoli florets in order for her to consume her second and third bites. The floor around George’s highchair is covered with food, a million little quinoa granules that someone (read: Mom) will have to clean up after suffering through this God-forsasken meal. What even is this?

Am I Going Crazy?

So here I am, attempting to nourish my family with delicious and interesting food with absolutely zero luck. Everywhere in the media, writers and doctors and mommy bloggers go on and on about the importance of incorporating wholesome food and unique ingredients into everyday life. Gweneth Paltrow write a 550 word think piece on the necessity of beet roots while Ina Garten laughs in the face of store-bought chicken stock, but I’m over here just trying to get my kids to eat anything besides yogurt-covered raisins.

Even my own mother, a saint in her own right, sends me a box of tools I need to prepare kefir water, because not only is it essential for gut health but what kind of mother would I be if my children drank filtered refrigerator water, and who cares that you’ve killed every house plant you’ve ever owned because feeding organic cane syrup to this jar of fermenting water is the only means by which your family will survive! I ask you, HOW I AM SUPPOSED TO KEEP ALL OF THESE THINGS ALIVE?!?

How Do We Do It?

So how do you do it, Moms? How do you feed your family well? And please don’t write to me about how simple your toddler’s vegan diet is or how you hand-mash your infant’s acorn squash that you grew in your 15-acre organic garden, because honestly, I might institutionalize myself. I want to hear it from the moms who have to will themselves not to order pizza every night. I want to learn from the moms who have to bootstrap it, night after night, just to encourage a diet from their family that expands beyond brown-and-serve sausage links and applesauce squeeze packs. What is our plan for feeding our family well when everyone at the table (self included) is crying? When hotdogs and Kraft singles seem like the easier path to follow?

Hot Fudge Sundae Cake

I need the opportunity to throw in the towel for a minute. Instead, for now, I’ll make dessert. No one cries at the sight of a hot fudge sundae cake. Everyone wins when mom makes a dessert like this.

I came up with this cake last year for my mother. She’s a huge fan of Bruster’s hot fudge sundaes and that was the single request for her birthday. In fact, I made several personal phone calls to the kind people at our local Bruster’s because I just had to learn more about these illusive Dixie nuts that my mom wouldn’t stop talking about. I discovered that these ultra-desirable nuts were nothing more than finely chopped mixed nuts roasted with butter and a healthy helping of salt.

Sidenote: Call me a child, but listening to my mother rave about how much she loved these nuts was giving me all the Michael Scott “That’s What She Said” feels. These are entirely inappropriate conversations to have with your parents and, okay, anyone over the age of 50. If your mother starts talking about Dixie nuts, do yourself a favor and just change the subject.